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Film Recommendation: Someone Beiruti

The K ·

Film Recommendation: Someone Beiruti I حدن بيروتي

It's not easy to make a film with talking heads captivating which is why this film is even more impressive than you can imagine. Touching, funny and heartbreaking you are taken on a journey of love and nostalgia and personal reflections.

Be ready to weep at some lovely moments. Happy viewing:

Follow the director on twitter  @JudeSChehab 

Reading: Portal9 Journal

The K ·

“As a journal of stories and critical writing about urbanism and the city,
Portal 9 blends creative writing, photography, and personal essays with academic scholarship, perceptive journalism, and cultural critiques.”
— Portal9journal.org

With 4 beautifully designed issues so far, this young journal has been an interesting addition to the Middle East writing scene. Approaching single themes or genres via fiction, non-fiction, criticism as well as the visual arts allows for a nicely rounded experience of a subject once the issue is digested. Give it a try and maybe submit your own work. The main concern of the journal is the city and so it is a must on the shelves of architects, planners, designers as well as writers and general readers.

ISSUE #1 THE IMAGINED, the journal hit the ground running with the intangible theme of the "imagined":

“To imagine a city is to express more fully its living character, rooted in its diverse experiences and its ongoing formation. “The Imagined” in a place creates another place, a refuge; it multiplies our capacity to live, transcending actuality and broadening its horizons. ”
— Fadi Tofeili - Portal9 Issue #1

ISSUE #2 THE SQUARE occupied itself with the Square (Saha/Maidan)  unsurprising in a Middle East that has recently played out its hopes and tragedies on the squares of its cities.

ISSUE #3 FICTION: CONTEMPORARY ARABIC AND RUSSIAN PURSUITS is described thus:

““In “Fiction,” we place the experiences of these new Russian writers alongside those from various Arab generations, all focused on breaking through the absurdity of ossified givens””
— Fadi Tofeili - Portal9 Issue #3

ISSUE #4 FOREST is a poetic contemplation of urban origins, nature and where we come from as well as where we are headed as a society.

Follow them on twitter @Portal9Journal