Past Film/Video | Documentaries

A Feeling Greater Than Love

(Shu’our akbar min al hob, Mary Jirmanus Saba, 2017, Lebanon)

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A elderly female in red hijab looking towards the camera.

Mary Jirmanus Saba’s feature-length debut, A Feeling Greater Than Love revives a forgotten moment in Lebanese history to explore the possibilities for social reform today.

In 1973, simultaneous strikes in Lebanon’s Gandour chocolate factory and Regie tobacco factory offered a brief moment of recognition for workers’ rights and the possibility of women’s emancipation. But whatever momentum was achieved was thwarted by the outbreak of the civil war in 1975 and the political strife that followed. Mining the remaining memories of these events, A Feeling Greater Than Love offers a pointed inquiry into the forgotten—and sometimes suppressed—histories of the Lebanese workers’ movement.

Drawing on the rich history of Lebanese militant cinema, Jirmanus Saba weaves together archival footage, images, and interviews with former organizers, producing a lucid conversation between the past and the present. Through its rich construction, the film questions how the legacies of popular revolution remain confined to the past, asking us to consider how encountering these histories could reinvigorate and transform the present moment. A Feeling Greater Than Love won the FIPRESCI International Film Critics Prize at the 2017 Berlin International Film Festival. In Arabic with English subtitles. (99 mins., video)

Jirmanus Saba joins us to discuss the film as part of the Signs of Remembering Series. Watch the conversation free on this site.

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A elderly female in red hijab looking towards the camera.

 Image courtesy of Tricontinental Media

A farm landscape at dusk with a car driving on the pathway.

 Image courtesy of Tricontinental Media

A man mimicking an aiming gesture.

 Image courtesy of Tricontinental Media

a woman holding a military weapon.

 Image courtesy of Tricontinental Media

A black and white image of a woman speaking in a crowd.

 Image courtesy of Tricontinental Media

Organized by the Wexner Center for the Arts and curated by Ohio State History of Art graduate student Dareen Hussein and Film/Video Curatorial Assistant Layla Muchnik-Benali.

This series was made possible with support from the Global Arts and Humanities Discovery Theme Fellowship.

FILM/VIDEO PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY
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ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY
Rohauer Collection Foundation

WEXNER CENTER PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY
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The Columbus Foundation
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Past Film/Video

A Feeling Greater Than Love