In the aftermath of the Beirut explosion in 2020, the city faces the challenge of healing while new crises inflict further wounds. The first feature documentary by Nicola von Leffern and Jakob Carl Sauer, To Close Your Eyes and See Fire [+lee también:
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Cineuropa: Lebanon is under attack once again. As in your documentary, the population is uncertain about what tomorrow will bring. How do you feel these days?
Jakob Carl Sauer: We are in contact with everyone and everybody is okay, considering the situation. We were really most worried about a family who lost a son in the explosion, because they live in the South. They live near Sidon and this is the area that is being carpet bombed.

How did you come up with the idea for the documentary, and how did you choose the stories?
Nicola von Leffern: So the whole project came about because I was working with an NGO in Lebanon – I think it was 13 years ago – actually in the south, with kids, and it was a programme about peace education, which is crazy to think about now. I was really tied to the country, and then when we started working together, we made a very short documentary on the electricity crisis. And then Jakob also really fell in love with Lebanon and the people. And then we always talked about making something longer. When the explosion happened, we just wanted to go there and see how everybody that we knew was doing. And then we ended up staying and filming a little bit. The idea was born that we would make a film, but we had no idea where it was going to lead us. Half of the time in those three years we were in Beirut, and half of the time we were at home in Vienna, because we also had to get funding.

JCS: We had a lot of conversations, and then, within the first year, we decided who we were going to stay with, and it was mainly our hearts, I would say, that guided us to where we found a connection and stayed – the protagonists.

You portrayed people from different social classes who processed the trauma in different ways.
NvL: I think our main idea was to find images that speak for themselves. And in the editing, I think it was very challenging to find those scenes, mainly conversations where you could give some information to the audience. But I think it was really also a matter of class. It's a film about the explosion, about trauma, but in general it's a film about class, and you can really see society, the cross-section of society. And you can really tell that with Selim and his niece, who say, “Yeah, we liked the excitement” – even in Lebanon, it's a certain class that can afford to look at life this way, and other people cannot. And for us it was really important to include this because it's also the truth of the society. It's not only the Syrian refugees in the garage; there's a lot of people who go skiing, you know. They take the helicopter to the ski resort, and on the same day they take the helicopter to the ocean so they can swim and ski on the same day.

As documentary filmmakers, have you ever wondered whether there is a problem with taking an overly European view of Middle Eastern culture?
NvL: If you look closely enough and portray the people in all their facets, and give depth to their lives, I think you can empathise and this makes you relate to other human beings. There's at least something like planting a seed. Sometimes I believe so much in the power of cinema - I can really feel in myself what it can do - and sometimes I think everything is worthless. And spending five years making this film, sometimes I think I could just go back and work with an NGO and I would be of more service. But then no, because they are often people who are really in important places of decision making - and reaching those people and speaking to them is so important.

JCS: But at the same time, especially in the edit, our point of view will always be there. And I think it's a documentary that mostly tries to build a bridge between Lebanon and Europe.