MIFF presents
Do You Love Me
When
Thu 13 Aug 2026
A play-it-loud trip through 70 years of Lebanese history.
“Disorientation is part of the journey. Welcome to Lebanon.” So pronounces Do You Love Me, which jams on Lebanese collective memory in ways both joyous and harrowing. Stitching together still photos, home movies, old celluloid, TV clips, radio broadcasts and podcasts, this free-associative portrait of life in Beirut is filled with acts of humanity and inhumanity. From garbage strikes to bomb strikes, news reports to pop-cultural ephemera, this wild ride through the archives is an act of resistance filled with singing and dancing.
Lebanon has no national archive, so filmmaker and interdisciplinary artist Lana Daher set out to make her own. Combing through 20,000 hours of footage drawn from across seven decades, Daher and co-writer/editor Qutaiba Barhamji – whose previous editing work has included Four Daughters, Smoke Sauna Sisterhood (both MIFF 2023) and the Oscar-nominated The Voice of Hind Rajab – forgo talking heads, voiceovers and explanatory intertitles. Instead, their exuberant supercut is shot through with energy, daring and an undeniable sense of humour.
Content: Melbourne International Film Festival
An ode to the collective courage of Lebanese people … [maintains] a remarkable rhythm that fluidly moves between calm, exuberance and disorder.
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