Caramel (2007)

About the film

Between the walls of the beauty salon Si Belle, five women share stories about their love lives and the joys and struggles that come with them. Salon owner Layale, played by Labaki, has a secret affair that tears her apart. Rima cannot openly express her queer identity. Nisrine has to hide from her fiancé that she is no longer a virgin. Actress Jamale is confronted with her age. In her sixties, Rose doesn’t allow herself to still enjoy love while being her elder sister’s caretaker.

Accompanied by either sparkling conversations, heated debates, or enchanting Lebanese music, we follow the women navigating between traditional Arabic social standards and their personal outspoken identities. “Who are the women from Lebanon?” was the question Nadine Labaki raised herself. “Why can’t I meet a Lebanese woman who is fully fulfilled?” With Caramel, she made a heartwarming comedy because she wanted to show their lives aren’t only made of drama.

Nadine Labaki is an award-winning actress and director. Her film Caramel received multiple awards, and with her later film Capernaum, she became the first Arab female director to be nominated for an Oscar. Growing up in a country at war, cinema provided her an escape into imagination. Through her fiction films, she flirts with documentary style, doing justice to her culture.

This film screening has English and Dutch subtitles  

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