Tripoli / A Tale of Three Cities (2024)

DESCRIPTION

While living abroad, a filmmaker returns to Tripoli, Lebanon to confront a hometown that once rejected him as a queer child. With a microphone in hand, he walks around coffee shops, public squares and a park to ask the city’s inhabitants about their cultural and social beliefs and their embrace of new ideas.
Gradually, he meets a group of marginalized individuals whose eccentric life choices contradict the general lifestyle in this religiously and socially conservative city. Through intimate conversations with them, he explores the complicated relations one forms with a hometown in crisis. This contemplative urban symphony paints a picture of a city trapped in a self -spun web, paralyzed by a deep economic crisis, a faltering revolution, and a looming doomsday.

       

News & reviews

Queer Lebanese Director Returns to His Hometown in ‘Tripoli/A Tale of Three Cities’ Trailer, The Hollywood Reporter, October 18 2024

‘Tripoli / A Tale of Three Cities,’ Exploring the Queer Experience in the Islamic World, Picked Up by Filmotor Ahead of IDFA World Premiere, Variety, 30 October 2024

DIRECTED BY
Raed Rafei, Lebanon, 2024, 88´
Festivals
WP: IDFA - Frontlight
TERRITORIES
World except of Lebanon
DIRECTOR BIO

Raed Rafei is a filmmaker, researcher, and multimedia journalist. Rafei directed award-winning documentaries and experimental films. His films have screened at international film festivals and venues like the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Doc Lisboa, IDFA, Visions du Réel, and the Pacific Film Archives in Berkeley. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Film and Media Studies at the University of Pittsburgh.