FADIA’S TREE
★★★★
OUT 5 AUGUST / CERT TBC / 82 MINS
DIRECTOR Sarah Beddington
CAST Fadia Loubani, Sarah Beddington
This is a documentary 15 years in the making, a journey that began when a Palestinian refugee named Fadia turned to filmmaker Sarah Beddington in a Beirut cafe and asked her the deceptively simple question, “Are you happy?” This chance encounter triggered a thoughtful exploration of what it means to have a home in the middle of the world's most intractable conflict, with a lost mulberry tree that sat opposite Fadia’s family home — spoken of in whispered, almost mythical tones — as a profound symbol for that idea of home. Title screens occasionally set the political context, but what’s more powerful about this film are the quiet moments of visual poetry: homing pigeons are a recurring motif, silhouetted against an evening sky, finding their way home.