Lebanese filmmaker Zeina Sfeir will present the world premiere of her new documentary, The
Silence of the Plain, at the 17th edition of the Middle East Now Film Festival, taking place in
Florence from 6 to 11 October 2026. The screening will be held on Friday 9 October at 6:00 PM
at [VENUE].
A small and deeply personal film, The Silence of the Plain is the result of an effort spanning
decades. It is a film about memory, war, and a reconciliation that never took place in Lebanon,
and it reflects its director’s lifelong commitment to preserving, through images, the memories
and dreams that war and forgetting threaten to erase.
Synopsis
When Zeina Sfeir was two years old, four men from her family were murdered during the
Lebanese civil war. The case was never solved. No one was ever named, tried, or held
accountable, and the family was left with questions that have gone unanswered ever since.
Sfeir grew up with war and with death as constant companions. Like an entire generation of
Lebanese, she inherited a grief that had no official place to go. When the war ended in 1990, the
country chose amnesty over truth: crimes were pardoned, files were closed, and silence became
national policy. Thousands of families were left without answers, among them the relatives of
the estimated 17,000 people who disappeared during the war and whose fate remains unknown to
this day. Lebanon turned the page without ever reading it.
The Silence of the Plain is an attempt to break that silence. Moving between intimate family
memory and the wider history of the country, the film seeks to understand a tragedy that did not
end with the war. Its consequences are still lived today, not only in Lebanon but across the
Middle East and the Arab world, where violence, loss, and unresolved injustice continue to shape
the lives of millions. Through one family’s story, the film speaks for countless others who carry
the same wound, and asks what it means to live, and to remember, in a country that has never
come to terms with its past.
Film Details
Title: The Silence of the Plain
Director: Zeina Sfeir
Country: Lebanon
Year: 2024
Running time: 68 min
Language: Arabic, with English/Italian subtitles
Production: madame le tapis
Screening
World Premiere – Friday 9 October 2026, 6:00 PM
Cinema La Compagnia, Via Cavour, 50r Florence, Italy