The Razor's Edge

In war-torn Beirut, Samar, a 15-year-old refugee, meets Karim, an older painter. The two form an unlikely bond that becomes threatened by their cultural and political reality. The first fiction film by journalist Jocelyne Saab, shot during the prolonged Lebanese civil war, The Razor’s Edge is a meditation on memory and the power of art in the face of the absurd. Batalha screens a restoration of the version shown at Cannes, in 1985. The film has underwent several re-cuts, but at the end of her life Saab recalled this version as “the simplest, most sincere”.