I’m lucky I live where I do. An accident of birth ensures that I can live my life in such a way that on a given day, my worries can consist of wondering how I’m going to pay for the video game console I impulse bought, without the omnipresent, realistic worry that a single, literally earth-shattering moment can take it all away from me. But on the other hand, as a child of diaspora, as someone who grew up within a community far from their home, but who still has family on the other side of the world, I still live in constant fear of them being snatched from me in that same earth-shattering moment. I live with the uncertainty that internet outages and downed phone lines can bring during times of political escalation. I’ve lived through nights like the one experienced in Sabine Kahwaji’s Alitisal.
Alitisal follows three Lebanese-Canadian siblings, Wissame (Marc Yammine), Nour (Vanessa Issa), and George (Omar Sidani), whose world is rocked when news breaks of an explosion in Lebanon, and they are unable to get in touch with their parents, who have gone back to visit. What follows is one difficult, sleepless night punctuated with emotional outbursts, inane commentary from the 24-hour news cycle, and ultimately the helplessness that comes from being far from “home” both geographically and culturally.
‘Alitisal’ Explores the Helplessness of Watching Tragedy From Abroad

In its very short runtime — just over 18 minutes — Alitisal paints a harrowing, accurate portrayal of the helplessness that so many of us feel watching a deeply personal tragedy unfold and being unable to do anything about it. The lack of soundtrack, minimal lighting, and claustrophobic camerawork all contribute to the film’s anxious undercurrent, one that boils over when the three siblings receive news from Lebanon that is neither the news they were hoping for or dreading, but instead forces them to examine their own lives of relative comfort, and the ostracism that such comfort and luxury ultimately brings them.
Perhaps the most heartbreaking part of Alitisal, however, is how true it feels. The siblings spend most of the film at odds with one another, because, regardless of the scale, tragedy is never the unifying event people want to believe it is. The roles they fall into are ones that they’ve held since childhood, defined by birth order, gender, and long-held resentments. The truest thing about it, however, is the sheer mental toll such tragedy takes on those who live in diaspora, and we see examples of it everywhere to this day. Though I am Iranian and not Lebanese, I’ve also had my fair share of this. How are you expected to live your life as normal in the West, when life-altering tragedies are befalling your people back home? When that 24-hour news cycle reduces you to convenient stereotypes to tell whatever story they wish to tell?
The answer is, you don’t. It instead takes a toll on your mental health as you try to reconcile living somewhere, and within a society that largely doesn’t care, one that sees you as “entertainment” as George puts it in the film. You burn out, and the best you can hope for is to not burn alone. This is the story that Kahwaji so brilliantly tells with Alitisal, one that will resonate, however painfully, for so many of us as these types of tragedies unfold around us to this day, and one that I hope will serve as an illustration for those lucky enough to not know what it’s like to ever feel like Wissame, Nour, and George do.
Alitisal is currently showing on the festival circuit.

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‘Alitisal’ tackles unspoken, tragic truths with an unflinching efficiency that sticks with you long after the film has ended.

Pros

Paints a bitter, heartbreakingly true picture of the reality of diaspora life when tragedy strikes.
Raw performances and claustrophobic creative choices serve to really drive home the anxiety of the story.

Director

Sabine Kahwaji

Cast

Vanessa Issa
, Marc Yammine
, Omar Sidani