My Family and the Explosion
Director & Producer
Mahmoud Kaabour
Subtitles/Transcript:
Nicole
00:19 When I came
home the day after,
this staircase was
covered in my man’s blood.
00:33 I called, “Naji, Naji, answer me!”
There was so much
destruction.
I tripped on his
leg. He was lying down with no shoes.
These doors were on
the floor, his head smashed under this metal.
01:01 Then I
started screaming: “Please help me, my man is badly injured!”
People could see
me, but they were all covered in blood.
I had thought we
were the only injured ones and the explosion was right
outside.
01:33 I stepped on
the balcony to watch. They loaded him on a moped and
drove him to the
hospital.
01:46 We are a
family of three, living a good life until recently. My husband is
an online fitness
instructor. I work at a bank. Our daughter is ten and goes to
school. Yasmina and Naji are who I live
for. I breathe through them.
02:37 I often wish
if all three of us died instantly together.
No one ought to
survive alone, because we are too close.
I live through
these feelings when I fear that he might die and leave us behind.
03:07 Our daughter
was outside Beirut at my sister’s home. But she learned
that the explosion
was in our area.
03:27 They might
claim that the buildings are inhabitable, just to make us
vacate. This is how
little we trust them. Assessing my property, they may claim
it’s safe when
it’s not, or the opposite! We can’t believe anything
they say.
03:51 One of our
cars is badly damaged. People are calling me to buy it
for
cheap. Maybe they
found my number by running the plate number
somewhere. Four
calls already! Even that sale I will decline.
The destruction has
been huge. To make our home liveable again we need to
invest big. I can’t see how we can. Shall I pray to God for this as well?
God
doesn’t have cash
money.
04:31 I can’t borrow because this time, everyone is so screwed. No
one has
been spared from
this tragedy in Lebanon, rich or poor!
The demonstrators
04:45 Down with the
government! They are all bastards! Down with the
government!
Nurse
05:03 Great that
you can open an eye!
Let’s remove the
serum.
Nicole
I can’t imagine how he feels...
Nurse
05:27 Are you
dizzy?
Hold this one like
a cane.
Nicole
05:38 He can’t move, needs help with everything! He was so strong.
05:59 Pity her, Yasmina has not seen him in two weeks.
Yasmina
07:20 I am most
comfortable when I am by his side. That’s when I stop to worry
about him. Usually I am afraid something will happen again. Before
school
resumed, I used to
be with him the whole time. When mom went back to work,
I took charge of
his medicine and always hugged him.
Naji
07:53 Now I have
lower back pain, maybe from being in bed over a month. And
a huge pain in the
head. I feel this head is not mine, as if someone planted
something between
my shoulders. It feels empty on the inside. There is a deep
dent going through,
from this side to the other. Also through my brow. I
have
trouble remembering
things. I don’t recall the explosion or where I was!
No
recollection of how
I was taken to hospital or what followed…
Nicole
08:59 Mar Mikhael area got affected in its stone and people. It
became empty
and naked. It looks
wretched in its broken buildings. It’s as if someone
raped a
body made of stone.
That’s how devastating their act was.
Our government has
destroyed us, killed us. It destroyed my husband’s body
and my daughter’s
life. On top, they want us to learn being beggars! How to
open our hands to
NGOs.
They have trampled
on our dignity.
10:24 I will help
you don’t worry.
10:30 We keep
finding more damage unfortunately. Think of the houses with
open fronts,
disaster is still coming their way. I fear the day it will rain. Our
houses will flood.
I am better off than others, look at their front!
Yasmina
10:59 I found this,
mom.
Nicole
11:01 Yes, throw
that as well.
I could see our
things scattered. The bathroom robe was down there. My
neighbor’s stuff as
well. That green thing is my own curtain. Now I feel numb.
11:19 First couple
of days were so hard, but now I am numb. During the
banking crisis, we
thought it couldn’t get any worse. We were just
emptying the
kitchen and found
so many food boxes! We were always afraid of starvation.
Instead, we
were killed by the explosion.
Titles and lower thirds:
00:02
On August 4th 2020,
Beirut’s port was rocked by the largest
non-atomic explosion ever.
This story is about its lasting ripples.
00:16
Nicole
01:39
My Family & The Explosion
06:48
The family moves into a furnished apartment
indefinitely.
11:54
Credits
Director & Producer
Mahmoud Kaabour
With
Nicole Torbey
Naji Makhlouf
Yasmina Makhlouf
Camera
Talal Khoury
Carine Torbey
Pauline Maroun
Sound
Rayan Al-Obeidyine
Tatiana Dahdah
Editing
Ibrahim Nashaat
Post-production Services
RMG 247 Productions
Production Management
Farah Naboulsi
Joanna Al Kai
Commissioning Editor
Jos de Putter
Special Thanks
Denise Holloway
Emil Pellicer
Ilja Willems
Ahmad Ghannoum
Florian Schewe
Jascha Hannover
Derren Lawford