director's note / producers' note / from the press / review
How come this man was able to come back and to overcome the scars of a past full of pain and blood? Why did the others decide not to come back? Were they held back by the fear that the war might happen again?
For me the film is an inquisition about a reconciliation that took place a long time ago, but still did not reach a minimum level of credibility to make people tolerant enough to forget the past and return trustfully to the confines of their village. It is a quest for clues to try to understand the psycho-sociological facet of those who preferred not to come back. (Simon El Habre)
The Civil War in Lebanon shamed the entire people. The One Man Village is one way to try to understand not the war itself but its aftermath and the questions of memory and healing.
For exactly these reasons and for the urgency to accentuate this genre of human approach this project touched us as independent producers, who, like Semaan, believe that life has to go on.
The One Man Village is such an example.
We know that we are expected to give a historical background when making a film about a region or a specific war so little is known about abroad. Yet we know that there are many contradicting versions of writing history, we do not want to write an additional one but rather open up and listen to what people have to tell.
The data given in the synopsis will need to do. As this film is about the confusion of amnesia and the question of how to integrate the horrors of (civil)war into life, we prefer to carefully listen to the people in the film, to observe them emphatically and open new channels of perception.
In international wars the war parties separate again after ceasefire, after a civil war everybody is still there. Civil wars happen permanently all over the globe. (Simon El Habre, Jad Abi Khalil, Irit Neidhardt)
From the Press
Alone with his herd - by Fionnuala Halligan for Screen Daily, London, December 29, 2008
reasons are never fully detailed). Wide festival exposure is assured, although other markets will be tricky. Word of mouth will be a vital tool in getting this seen. Simon El Habre certainly
emerges as a talent to watch, and his gift for composition and mood indicates he could be equally comfortable in the fiction arena with his next.