Memory Box(HKAFF 2021)

A box of old letters and photos connects two generations of women in this time-spanning drama from the award-winning filmmaking team of Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige. Inspired by Hadjithomas’ own experiences, their first film in nearly a decade begins when a large package from Lebanon arrives at the Canadian home of single mother Maia. The box contains old letters and keepsakes Maia prefers to ignore, and it takes her teen daughter Alex to unlock this time capsule and uncover her mother’s tumultuous adolescence in 1980s Beirut, when the Lebanese civil war engulfed, yet didn’t fully define, her mother’s life. An exploration of memory and a celebration of women, this engrossing drama both illuminates and entertains.