Jocelyne Saab

When peace proves impossible, all means are justified to defend a political cause. That’s what the suicide-commandos argue. Jocelyne Saab was the first journalist to be able to film these young people, aged between 16 and 20, who were training daily in a secret underground base.

In July 1982, the Israeli army besieged Beirut. Journalist and filmmaker Jocelyne Saab watched her home burn down. One hundred and fifty years of family history went up in smoke. She seeks refuge in questions: when did this all start? How did the people of Beirut experience the siege? Each place then becomes a story, and each name is a memory.

As a journalist and filmmaker, Jocelyne Saab focused on vulnerable people, from displaced groups to war victims. Her work is marked by the actions necessary to document historical violence. In Children of War, she meets heavily traumatised children left behind after escaping a massacre in a Muslim neighbourhood in Beirut.

With her films, pioneering journalist Jocelyne Saab gives exiled warriors and displaced people a voice. Her work is poetic but also has a strong awareness of her subjective role as a documentary filmmaker.