Irene Bartolomé: Dream of Another Summer
World Premiere. First feature documentary. Main award in “Next Wave”… and definitely one of the best films I have seen at this year’s CPH:DOX. Totally balanced in rhythm, long shots, no camera movement, each image is like a nature morte, next wave section maybe, but I see it much more like a classic, it has a tone of melancholy that it keeps in every moment and the way of conveying the background story if you can call it that – the explosion of silos in the harbour of Beirut in August 2020 and the consequences physically and mentally – is there all the time. There is no voice-off or commentary but – what an original idea – phone calls to Alicia, the character of the film who you never see, the one who lives in the apartment after being away for some time. Not to forget the impressive sound score and composed? music if I got it right. In other words an excellently constructed film, where there is a distance in the approach to people in the streets of Beirut, seen from the street – the small shops in the dark narrow streets and from inside of the apartment, the kitchen, the sitting room, the unmade bed… there is a personal angle as well, the voice of a man on the phone machine, “why don’t you call me”, words to that effect. And Alicia who writes in her diary book, and the woman who turns her back to the camera sitting in a café. The alter ego of the director?
Oh, I liked that film, also – admitted – because Beirut is such a pearl, where I have been a couple of times and from where journalists like Danish Lass Ellegaard and British Robert Fisk lived and sent their reports.
❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️❤️
Spain, Lebanon, 2026, 70 mins.
