Trailer: Do You Love Me (2025), by Lana Daher.
The Middle East Institute’s Arts & Culture Center is pleased to present a screening of the award-winning documentary Do You Love Me (75 min, 2025), by Lebanese filmmaker Lana Daher. The screening will be preceded by a short, recorded message from Daher.
Featuring 70 years of Lebanese independent cinema, photographs, music, home videos, and other audiovisual media drawn from over 100 archives and sources, Do You Love Me reveals a multifaceted portrait of Lebanon through Daher’s personal and playful exploration of the country’s audiovisual memory. Created with editor and co-writer Qutaiba Barhamji (editor of The Voice of Hind Rajab and the Oscar-nominated Four Daughters), Daher’s love letter to Beirut uncovers intimate moments of joy, celebration and loss that shaped Lebanon’s cultural memory. In the absence of official records and national archives, the film pieces together the country’s fragmented histories and identities across generations.
Since the film’s premiere at the Venice Film Festival in 2025, the documentary has been featured at over 40 international film festivals and screenings. Join us at this special screening for an evening reflecting on the power of memory and archive. At a moment when war and displacement once again threaten Lebanon’s cultural landscape, the film is a testament to how archives, images, and personal testimony can preserve cultural memory, ensuring that histories, identities, and ways of life are not erased.
Registration opens at 5:30 pm, with light refreshments and snacks provided. The program begins promptly at 6:00 pm.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKER
Lana Daher is a filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist based in Beirut, Lebanon. With a background in fine arts and graphic design (BFA, American University of Beirut) as well as filmmaking (MA, Goldsmiths, University of London), she has long been active in Beirut’s vibrant art and music scenes, working across sound, image, and archival practices. Do You Love Me is her debut feature. An IDFAcademy alumna, Lana also co-produced the film through her company, My Little Films, founded in 2024.
Lana Daher (c) Sami Sorasalmi.
A Glimmer of Hope in a Time of War: The Beirut Museum of Art’s Mission to Heal and Regenerate Lebanon Through Art
