In 2009, while Korean director Lee Chang-dong was busy filming his fifth film, “Poetry,” one of the most important car manufacturing companies in South Korea was laying off a third of its employees. As a result, the company's workers' union organized a strike, which the Korean police quickly put an end to using violence. In the weeks and months that followed, a number of workers took their lives by committing suicide.
The news did not go unnoticed by a director who has always placed the marginalized and outcast at the forefront of his films, and explained the repercussions of social events on the human psyche. Dong waited 15 years to present “Possible Love,” the film that won the Grand Jury Prize “Silver Lion” at the 2026 Venice Film Festival. After a quick stop in the halls, the “Netflix” platform took over the cinematic work, which lasts 164 minutes without the viewer needing to look at the clock.
The film begins with a scene from everyday life. A family consisting of father, mother, and son prepares to go to a funeral. The woman tries to hold herself together, but she is overcome with tears in the car, while the man frowns, an expression that will accompany him throughout the film. As for the boy’s face, where an involuntary movement is repeated, it says a lot about a house whose circumstances are unusual.
It turns out that the funeral is for a man who committed suicide after he was fired from his job, and that he was a colleague of Ho Seok who was also fired, which explains the frown that accompanies him. Even though two years have passed since his expulsion and he has found another job, he seems immersed in shock, drowning it in many doses of alcohol. How could he not, when the expulsion turned into a peaceful sit-in that cost him physical and psychological pain after government forces stormed it?
During the post-burial lunch, while Ho Seok drinks one glass after another and his wife Mi Ok tries to stop him, an argument rages between them. This takes place in front of the lens of a woman who is there to photograph the funeral. It turns out that she is a director who is preparing a documentary about the reality of employees fired from their jobs, and she is trying to convince the duo to talk to her.
Mi Ok volunteers to testify in front of the camera, providing extensive narration and description, unlike her husband who is always silent and refuses to speak. As if he were an “extra,” Ho Seok contents himself with participating in the scenes without speaking or even undergoing the psychological therapy sessions available to furloughed workers.
Gradually, and with the skill of a director thirsty to document an exclusive story, “Li Yiji” enters the lives of the morally and financially exhausted couple. She and her team become a permanent guest in their humble home and other places they live. From the mask factory where Mi Ok works, to martial arts exercises where the son seems to lag behind all his friends, and not ending with the therapy sessions that Ho Seok tries to participate in to no avail.
A strange dynamic arises between the characters, especially between the two women. On the surface, it is a sweet friendship between a wealthy, sympathetic director and a woman trying to save what remains of her home, armed with a joy that is difficult to explain. However, the inside of the relationship is more complex than that. Knowing that the director's wealth comes from her husband, Sangu Woo, who always penetrates the scene, his luxury sports car, and his calls in English with his partners in the United States. This handsome husband, whom Mi Ok does not hide her admiration for, and who turns his luxurious home adjacent to the beach into a filming location, reveals a lot about the nature of the relationship between the two couples who come from two contradictory worlds.
The director gives the story the necessary time for its many layers to unfold, and he does not neglect the development of the character arcs that the actors perform with a skill that captivates the eyes and breaths, and makes the audience believe every gesture and every reaction.
Viewers have the impression that they are watching a movie within a movie, as the real director's lens intersects with Lee Yeji's camera, in a work that excels at combining drama and documentation.
Director Li Yijie starts from an honorable desire. She wants to document the tragedy of a family destabilized by arbitrary dismissal, and through it raise a valid issue in which capitalist institutions and government agencies are implicated. However, her immersion in the lives of her heroes reveals her hidden complexes. In addition to her not hesitating to intrude into other people's daily lives to the point of exploitation and managing them according to what suits her work, it is as if the director wants to capture their lives and their tragedy.
On the one hand, she wears expensive clothes to filming locations, exposing herself to Mi Ok's pointed criticism despite her extreme kindness, and on the other hand, she seems greedy for suffering. As if she wanted it for herself in order to give meaning to her life.
Without taking sides and with a high degree of neutrality, the film presents the hidden class and financial conflict, but it does not do so in a scandalous manner similar to the Korean film “Parasite,” for example. Violence is not at the forefront here, but is summarized in fleeting fragments, and the poor duo is content to watch the wealth of the second party, without seizing anything from it. As for anger, which is the pulse of the characters, it is only given in doses and does not explode until the end.
At the beginning of the film, the phrase “Do not covet your neighbor’s possessions” or “Do not covet” appears. It is not for nothing that director Lee Chang-dong chose this particular commandment from God's Ten Commandments. The story, which began with an urgent social issue whose victims were marginalized workers who were dismissed from their jobs, turns into a psychological vortex in which negative human emotions are mixed, such as greed, exploitation, unbridled desires, and anger... all within a framework that re-raises the issue of the ethics of documentary work and the extent of its immersion in the privacy of others and the transformation of their tragedies into photographic material.
Moroccan director Mohamed Zeineddine said that his relationship with the world of writer Mohamed Zafzaf, whom he returned to in his film “Until Dawn,” began with a meeting between them in Casablanca in 1992, when he was thinking about making a documentary about him. But the meeting went beyond its first purpose, and turned into an experience that inspired him to write, after he spent hours listening to the author of “Trying to Live,” to come up with ideas that later contributed to the birth of his first feature film, “Awakening.”
In his interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, Zein Al-Din recalled the details of that meeting, explaining that he sat with Zafzaf for about 4 or 5 hours without recording anything, as he completely devoted himself to listening to him. As soon as he arrived at the hotel, he began writing, as if the conversation that took place between them opened his way to stories and pictures that had not yet taken shape.
About 30 years later, a chance encounter on the street brought him back to that world, when he found the novel “Attempting to Live” at a bookseller lying on the floor with it. He bought it and sat reading it in a café, and was drawn to the characters, atmosphere, and places in it, and he felt that it had viable elements on the screen. Thus, the reading turned into the beginning of a cinematic project through which he returned to the world of Zafzaf, through the story of a boy trying to find his place in a reality that narrows his life options.
The events of the Moroccan film “Until Dawn” take place in the Moroccan city of Kenitra during the 1970s, following the story of “Hamid,” a 16-year-old boy whose mother pushes him to sell newspapers and burdens him with responsibilities beyond his years, while arranging his marriage to a young woman who owns a small boat to transport residents across the river.
Between the streets of the city and the bars of the port, Hamid meets a woman who gives him the tenderness and listening that he lacks, only to find himself torn between his own feelings and his family’s expectations, on a journey in which questions of maturity, desire, and self-searching intersect.
Regarding the transfer of the story from the novel to the cinema, Zein Al-Din saw that the adaptation requires freedom that allows the director to reconstruct the work with his own tools, because every art has its own laws and methods of expression. He explained that, for him, loyalty to the literary text does not mean literal adherence to its details, but rather preserving the spirit of the writer and the background from which his view of his characters begins, while the treatment remains subject to change in a way that gives the film its language, rhythm, and artistic independence, without severing its connection to the world from which it was inspired.
One of the most notable additions he made to the story was a site where large numbers of storks were sheltered. It was known as “American Garbage,” where Americans in the city of Kenitra used to throw away their waste, and Moroccans would come to it in search of something they could use.
Zain Al-Din explained that this place does not exist in the novel, but he found in it a space that combines the details of fragile living and the connotations of the birds that land there, to become part of the cinematic vision that he built around the characters and their environment. He chose the stork because of its connotations related to migration and birth, recalling folk tales that link it to the coming of children into the world, as well as its seasonal movement from northern Europe. He added: “I borrowed details from my childhood that I thought were useful for Hamid’s character.”
These additions are related to the director's vision of the character of the hero, whose crisis is shaped around the question of identity. Hamid, who is no more than sixteen years old, finds himself required to work, marry, and act like a complete man, at a time when he is still trying to understand himself and discover his desires.
Zein Al-Din believes that this confusion is not limited to the Moroccan environment, but rather extends to the experiences of teenagers in different parts of the world, who are searching for a definition of themselves amidst the expectations of others. Hamid is dissatisfied with his reality and seeks to change it, while his relationship with the woman he meets in the bar pushes him to discover feelings and desires that contribute to redirecting his path.
In the context of his talk about his artistic choices, the director stopped at combining classical Arabic in narration and Moroccan dialect in dialogue, stressing that this method is based on Zafzaf’s own way of writing, as he described places and characters in classical Arabic, and left his characters to dialogue in their daily language. He pointed out that this characteristic was one of the characteristics that he did not dare to change, because it was closely linked to the writer’s way of building his literary world.
Zain al-Din's return to the atmosphere of Quneitra was not limited to recalling the places mentioned in the story, but rather extended to searching for sites bearing traces of the city's past. In this context, his research led him to a printing press dating back to the 1950s, which was closed and unused, so he chose it to photograph the place from which newspapers were distributed, in a visual restoration of the atmosphere of the period in which the events took place.
“Until Dawn” will participate in three film festivals during November, as it will have its world premiere in the “Critics’ Choices” competition at the 30th session of the Tallinn “Black Nights” Festival in Estonia, and it will compete in the “Horizons of Arab Cinema” competition at the 47th session of the Cairo International Film Festival. It will also be shown in the “Panorama of Moroccan Cinema” section at the 23rd session of the International Film Festival in Marrakesh in Morocco.
We are in Beirut, when it was an Arab center for books, money, and freedom, and was experiencing the height of its prosperity, in the early sixties of the last century. In that era, in the commercial center of the capital, which is known as “Nast El-Balad,” the “National Theater” arose, meters away from Martyrs’ Square. In these favorable circumstances, Lebanon gave birth to the great comedy star, Shoshu, who would become a legend. He is Hassan Alaa El-Din, who mortgaged his life to theatre, faced difficulties, made great sacrifices, and died at the peak of his life, at the age of 36, after forming a milestone in the history of Lebanese theatre.
After 50 years of that absence, Fares Joachim, the talented man who accompanied Shoshu for 10 years and wrote his most famous plays for him, appears with the book “Shoushu in Memory,” published by “Dar Al-Furat.” Joachim documents the stage, corrects incorrect information that marred some of what was written about the artist’s biography, and provides a living testimony. Hence the importance of the book.
Shushu needed an incubator environment to announce his birth, and the city needed a prominent artistic talent to support its prosperity. Thus, the National Theater continued to present its performances for a decade, thanks to its stable troupe, becoming a phenomenon the likes of which Beirut had never witnessed.
The promising beginning
On November 11, 1965, the curtain rose for the first time at the National Theater on the play “Shushu Bey in Tyre,” prepared and directed by Nizar Mikati, adapted from “The Journey of Mr. Brechon” by the Frenchman Eugène Labiche. The book describes the show as “elegant, generous, dazzling the Beirut audience,” and lasting 21 weeks. The rosary was then filled with popular comedies, addressing the large audience in the Lebanese language, in a hall that could accommodate 450 spectators, and it worked throughout the year except for the two summer months, when the plays toured the regions. They were cheerful and funny works, but over time the theater turned into a platform for expressing public opinion and popular demands, and the audience’s attachment to it increased.
Shushu was born in Beirut in 1939. His father is Khader al-Jouni from the Chouf, and his mother is Nawar Haidar from Baalbek. As for his wife, she is Fatima, the daughter of the artist Muhammad Shamil, whose marriage to her caused a rift between him and her father, who was credited with introducing him to radio and television.
An orphan since he was seven years old, his mother raised him until he became strong. He loved acting since his childhood, and took an artistic name for himself, “Mabrouk.” He participated in comic scenes, imitated characters, sang for children, moved between amateur teams, and participated in concerts organized by scouting societies.
Muhammad Shamil saw him in one of the shows and was impressed by his performance, so he assigned him a role in a children’s program on “Lebanon and Levant TV.” This was the beginning of his steps towards professionalism. Shamil was the one who gave him the name “Shoushu,” and gave him roles in television and radio series, such as “Ya Manager,” “Ezz Street,” and “Ya Sabr Ayoub.” But Shushu's association with Shamil's daughter, without his consent, angered the latter, so he dispensed with his services, and that was a severe blow to him.
Birth of a project
Shushu became unemployed, walking aimlessly, until he found the “Sheherazade” cinema and convinced its owner to rent it. Despite the financial difficulties, he was able, in cooperation with director Nizar Mikati, to launch the “National Theater” project, which presents daily shows.
Three years after the opening of the theater, Fares Joachim met Shoshu, who came to the theater to write a critical article, after his recent graduation from Egypt. But their relationship lasted 10 years. He followed Chouchou as a critic, lived with him, befriended him, and sat with him, and most importantly, he wrote theatrical, cinematic, and radio scripts for him. The coexistence was daily and professional, and continued until Shoshu's last performance in late June 1975.
Beirut knew the “Munir Abu Debs Band” and the “Multaqa” Band, in addition to various plays of a serious experimental nature, but a regular theatrical audience was not formed in the true sense of the word until after the opening of the Shushu Theater.
Theater has become Nizar Mikati's main occupation. He trains actors, sculpts talent, and tracks the work. He performed with Chouchou 12 plays, including “The Patient of Delusion” and “The Miser” by Molière, “Topaz” by Marcel Pagnol, and 9 vaudeville plays, adapted from works by well-known writers. After 5 years, the partnership was dissolved, and Mikati sold his share in the “National Theater” to Muhammad Al-Toukhi.
Shushu in the cinema
Shoshu was not confined to the stage. He appeared in 8 films, starting in 1962 with the movie “Shoshu and the Million” with Muhammad Shamil, and a year later he presented “Ya Salam Ala Al Hob.” After his star shone on stage, he participated in the movie “The Adventures of Shoshu” and others.
He wanted cinema to be his window to wide Arab fame, similar to Najib Al-Rihani, Ismail Yassin, and Fouad Al-Muhandis. For this reason, he resorted to joint Lebanese-Egyptian films. His last film was “My Beautiful Lady,” for which Fares Youakim wrote the screenplay and dialogue, starring Nelly and Mahmoud Yassin. It was shown in Egypt under the title “The Pickpocket,” and Shoshu produced it to secure some revenue and alleviate his debts. It did generate revenue, but Shoshu was gone before it started running.
Difficult mood... and more difficult circumstances
The book tells in detail about the financial difficulties that Shoshu faced in order to be able to establish his theater, the difficulty of managing his expenses, and the debts that burdened him, as well as his bohemian personality, and his drive behind one goal, which is success on the stage. Joachim says that he admired Charlie Chaplin, and never tired of watching his films and observing his silent movements and facial expressions. He also used to watch the films of Najeeb Al-Rihani, whom he did not get to see.
With a thin body, a thick mustache, a weak build, and eyes that radiated intelligence, Shushu would not stop smoking and drinking coffee, and would stay up late so that he would not go to bed before dawn. A lot of listening, little talking and eating. Deep down, he was a sad man. He comes to the theater two hours before the show; For him, theater is oxygen and a cure for his financial worries and medical pain. He made others laugh, but he himself was in pain.
His slender build helped him play comedic and pantomime roles. He was talented at coloring his voice, improvising quickly, and telling jokes. That is why his success in cinema and television did not reach the peak that he reached on stage due to his exceptional skill in direct interaction with the audience. Theater director Roger Assaf said about him on the occasion of the presentation of the play “Akh Ya Baladna”: “He is the owner of the only Lebanese band that has an audience. Reaching 70,000 viewers is a great achievement. He is unique in Lebanon in his career.”
Shushu was truly a multi-talented artist. In addition to cinema and television, he participated in major summer festivals, such as “Baalbek Festivals” and “Cedars Festivals.” He also established a children's theater out of a desire to increase his income and prepare a generation that has a taste for theatre.
Debts accumulated on Shushu, even though his hall was not quiet, and the audience did not tire of attending his performances. The book explains that he got into debt when establishing the theater, because he was unable to borrow from banks, and was forced to resort to moneylenders, who imposed fantastic interest on him. The debts began to grow like a snowball, until they became one of the reasons for the deterioration of his health. Mirna Al-Bustani had promised him to pay his debts through the “Industry and Labor Bank,” in which she had a significant stake, so that he would owe the bank a much lower interest rate. But the civil war broke out, and toppled Al-Waad, the theater, and Shushu.
Shushu's death
Dr. Robert Khoury was attending the play “Oh Our Country.”
