As Marianne pushes her baby, Nino, out into the world, an explosion blasts through the hospital. The baby is rushed by an attendant through the chaos to save him from a potential building collapse. Exactly one minute after that bombing, Yasmina is born in the same hospital in Beirut.
We are told that one additional minute later, a massacre took place, the last stretch of railway was destroyed, and a rocket was sent into space. The truly talented authors, Cyril Aris and Bane Fakih, are taking some liberty with Lebanon’s timeline. But these events of terror, destruction, and hope, occurring respectively in 1982, the late 1980s, and 1963, are all true.
Birth of Conflict
Once known as the Switzerland of the Middle East, civil war erupted in the ex-French protectorate in 1975. In the same year, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) lobbed explosives from southern Lebanon into Israel. At the same time, Lebanese religious-political groups were jockeying for readjusted representation due to a change in the population. In a culminating offensive in 1982, Israel launched a massive invasion to expel the PLO and its threat to Israeli security.
Using a Love Story to tell a History
I used to live in Lebanon. It is a little smaller than the state of Connecticut, with sandy beaches on the Mediterranean and winter ski resorts in the mountains.
For me, “A Sad and Beautiful World” is a subtle allegory of the history of Lebanon in the last 50 to 60 years. It parallels the love story that develops between Nino and Yasmina. Seeing the two together, an old man remarks, reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet, “Two stars are crossing today.” This eerie prophetic vision of the two young people also matches forces coinciding in Lebanon that even today, at this moment, are coinciding to determine her fate.
Lebanon, a sad and beautiful country, is the sad and beautiful world Nino and Yasmina must reckon with.
Nino and Yasmina
The two star-crossed lovers, though born a minute apart and in the same hospital, meet for the first time when they are 7. They feel an inexplicable gravitation. However, rather soon there is a sudden, unexpected, and unexplained separation. Nino waits for a long time in vain for Yasmina to return. Before computers and cell phones, Yasmina cannot tell Nino what has happened.
About 20 years pass. Nino bizarrely, accidentally, and unknowingly slams into Yasmina’s mother’s great storefront window with his car.
Explosion-separation-explosion-reunification. Like the turbulent, volatile political situation in Lebanon, Nino and Yasmina find themselves reunited, ironically, in a hospital after the window crash.
Nino is already known in Beirut as a successful restaurateur and romancer. Yasmina is a successful advisor in the crumbling Lebanese banking industry. He’s a dreamer bbut she’s practical, having arranged, like many others, to leave Lebanon as its financial system begins its collapse.
Discontent
Nino yearns for normalcy, marriage and family in a country facing increasing corruption and mounting dysfunction.
Yasmina, a realist, explains the position of the Lebanese joining the growing diaspora:
“I hate walking these streets, wondering when they’ll blow up in my face
I hate that every year our forests go up in flames,
I hate that the country has collapsed – our savings stolen by the banks.
I hate that we are living the same struggles as our parents.
My love, is this the world you want to bring a child into?”
This love story explains much about Lebanon and the people who were born and belong there. It explains their conflict, their immigration, and still, their love of their country. Lebanese are well-educated, entrepreneurial, and focused on a celebration of life. “A Sad and Beautiful World” is a tribute to the Lebanese people, the challenges they have been facing for the last 60 years and the loyal perseverance of those still remaining in the face of repeated attempts to tear them away.
Credits
Director: Cyril Aris
Writers: Cyril Aris and Bane Fakih
Cast: Nounia Akl, Hasan Akil, Julia Kassar, Camille Salameh and Tino Karam
Producers: Georges Schoucair, Jennifer Goyne Blake, April Shih, Georg Neubert and Jasper Wiedhoft
Cinematography: Joe Saade
Editors: Cyril Aris and Nat Sanders
Music: Anthony Sahyoun
US Release: July 24, 2026
Official Website: https://www.paradisecity-films.com/a-sad-and-beautiful-world
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