Tales of the Wounded Land: Abbas Fahdel's intimate portrait of Lebanon and war 

Born in Babylon, Iraq — a land torn apart by conflict — and gifted not only with the ability to observe keenly but also to empathise with people’s private tragedies deeply, Abbas Fahdel seems to have arrived on earth with a mission to record and narrate the painful journey of his fellow Iraqis and neighbours.

Over the years, through films like Homeland: Iraq Year Zero and We Iraqis, he has transformed personal and collective memory into a meticulous cinematic testimony of his nation’s suffering and resilience.

In his two latest films – Tales of the Purple House and Tales of the Wounded Land, both set in Lebanon – Fahdel, together with his wife, the artist Nour Ballouk, turns the lens inward.

He intertwines his personal life with broader historical narratives, exploring the multifaceted nature of Lebanon during a period of sociopolitical collapse and attempts at post-war recovery, offering an intimate on-screen portrayal of memory, loss, and survival.

We sit down with him to talk more about the recently awarded Locarno, Tales of the Wounded Land, which also happens to be a very timely report on the current atrocities caused by the Israeli aggression in the Middle East.

The New Arab: You’re well known for your first-person documentary chronicles of life in the midst of war and destruction, such as Back to Babylon, Homeland: Iraq Year Zero, and now Tales of the Wounded Land. What makes this personal, close-up approach so important to your cinema?

Abbas Fahdel: For me, cinema has never been about standing outside, observing from a safe distance. I come from a region where wars have multiplied and where too often the stories are told by others, usually from afar. What I try to do is the opposite: to be inside life itself, with the people, sharing their fears, their joys, their silences.

The “personal” is not a stylistic choice; it is a necessity. If I put myself, my family, my loved ones into the film, it is because I want to dissolve the barrier between the one who films and the one who is filmed.

In war, no one is a neutral observer. Everyone is implicated. By being close, by showing intimacy, I hope the audience can feel, not just understand, that what happens to “others” could happen to them too. It is a way to restore to the victims their dignity, to take them out of abstraction and numbers, and to say: here are human beings, as fragile and complex as you and I.

In this sense, this film is personal, but it is not my story solely. It is the story of the people of South Lebanon. I was only there with a camera, trying to listen, to record, to transmit. My role is not to interpret or to explain, but to give back what I saw and heard, as faithfully as possible. If the film succeeds in carrying their voices, then I consider that my task is fulfilled.  

Given that people face so much death during war, it almost feels inappropriate to concern oneself too much with the material destruction – houses, shops, infrastructure, etc. How did you dare to deal with this neglected, but actually very important, topic in Tales of the Wounded Land?

You are right, when lives are lost, what are walls compared to that? And yet, when I walked through villages in South Lebanon, I saw that the destruction of houses, schools, roads, and shops was also a form of killing — killing the continuity of life, killing memory, killing the possibility to live together.

A house is not just a pile of stones; it is years of work, of dreams, of stories told under its roof. A school is not just a building; it is the future of children. A cemetery is not only graves, but the presence of ancestors. An olive grove is not just trees, but the heritage of centuries. Pharmacies, mosques, playgrounds — all these places are part of the daily fabric of a community.

When all that is reduced to rubble, people are not only mourning their dead, but they are also deprived of the spaces where life could be rebuilt. These are not “secondary” losses. They are part of the violence of war, and they condition the way survivors will be able — or not — to continue living. 



The film is a low-budget, family project, yet of vital importance in documenting the recent war in South Lebanon. What helps you maintain spontaneity and motivation to keep filming at moments when you and your family are in danger? 



When you are in danger, you have two possibilities: either to close your eyes and hide, or to keep them wide open and record. For me, filming is a way to resist fear.

It transforms anguish into action. Of course, I am afraid, and I worry for my family, but if we are living this together, then the least I can do is to preserve a trace of it. Because if I don’t film, the destruction will still be there, but it will have passed in silence.

The camera is a fragile shield — not against bombs, but against oblivion. And this fragile act of filming, with the means at hand, is what allows me to remain standing. 



What shook you most while filming? 



Not what I saw, but what I heard — or rather, what I didn’t hear. After the bombardments, after the chaos, what remains is an immense silence that covers everything.

A village reduced to rubble has a sound: it is the absence of life, of children’s voices, of daily noises. That silence made me feel that life itself had been suspended, that time had stopped. That silence, more than any image of destruction, still haunts me. 


How long did the shooting and editing process take, and how much raw material did you have to work with in making the film? 



The shooting stretched over several months. Often, I would film during the day and start editing the same evening. It was a way to confront what I had seen, to test the balance of images, to listen again to what people had told me.

The editing was not only a technical task, but also a moral one: deciding what to keep, what to leave aside, and above all, how to find the right rhythm, because destruction can be overwhelming.

I wanted the film to be no more than two hours, so that it could be seen in one sitting, without exhausting the viewer, while still carrying the density of what I had witnessed. 



Poems punctuate the film throughout its entire duration, giving it a metaphysical dimension. Who is this author?

Myself. During the long months of bombings and displacement, I felt the need to put my emotions into words. Poetry came to me almost instinctively. It was a way to breathe, to hold on, when everything around me seemed to be collapsing.

Some days I would write one, sometimes two poems, short or long texts that carried fragments of what we were going through.

When I began editing the film, I realised that these poems could belong there—not as something separate, but as part of the film’s own voice. I chose to use short excerpts, almost like haikus. They became a way to punctuate the narrative, to prepare the transition between sequences. They also serve as intimate whispers, giving voice to what the images could not fully express.

What did you want — and not want — to show in the film? Which parts of the footage were left out, and why? 



I didn’t want to make a horror film. War produces unbearable images, but I chose not to show those images because they shock without enlightening, and often they block empathy.

What I wanted to show were the traces: the ruins, the gestures of those who search in the rubble, the faces of survivors, their words.

These are strong enough. By leaving out what was too sensational, I hope I preserved a form of dignity for those filmed and for those watching. The absence of horror is not denial: it is a way of making the film accessible, so that it can be watched, shared, and remembered. 



Your little daughter is an active character in the film. What kind of life experience are you hoping she will gain from this filming process? 



My daughter is in the film because she is part of my life, and because in war, you cannot separate family from daily reality.

I didn’t want to make her a “character,” but her presence naturally became essential. Seeing her walk among ruins, ask questions, and continue to play despite everything is a reminder that war is not abstract. It is lived by children too.

At the same time, her innocence brings something vital: a kind of resistance to despair. In the midst of death and destruction, her laughter and games are like fragile sparks of life, proving that not everything can be reduced to rubble.

What do I hope she gains from this? Not trauma, of course, but an awareness: that the world is fragile, that violence exists, but also that it is possible to face it with open eyes and a sense of responsibility.

I want her to grow up with lucidity, but also with humanity, without ever losing her ability to feel compassion — and perhaps also to preserve that inner strength of childhood, which allows life to assert itself even in the most desolate landscapes.

What impact on the local community are you hoping for after this film? 



The people of South Lebanon do not need me to tell them what they have lived through; they know it better than anyone. But the danger is that their suffering will be forgotten, denied, or rewritten by others.

My hope is that this film can be a modest tool of memory, a way of saying: “this happened, it cannot be erased.”

For the local communities, maybe it is also important to know that their voices and their pain are carried beyond borders, that they are not condemned to silence.

I don’t pretend that a film can change the course of politics or stop the violence, but it can create a space of remembrance and solidarity. And sometimes, that is already a lot. 



Are you working on anything new? 



At the moment, my main concern is to accompany Tales of the Wounded Land wherever it can be shown. Each screening is not just a presentation; it is part of the film itself because it creates encounters, dialogues, and questions. That is very important to me.

Of course, ideas for new projects are already there, but for now, my priority is this film, because it still needs to be seen, to circulate, to bear witness. 



Mariana Hristova is a freelance film critic, cultural journalist, and programmer. She contributes to national and international outlets and has curated programs for Filmoteca de Catalunya, Arxiu Xènctric, and goEast Wiesbaden, among others. Her professional interests include cinema from the European peripheries and archival and amateur films