Deek Beirut

In Lebanon, Syrian workers live like ants in underground pits. Each morning at sunrise, they climb the construction sites and with their first hammer stroke, they wake up the country. For this reason they are nicknamed "Beirut roosters." A country they only know from a distance, being banned from moving around freely or swimming in its sea. And while the "Beirut roosters" rebuild the Lebanese houses, the war in Syria destroys their own homes. It is this war in Syria that leads to the encounter of Ziad, the director of this film who defected from the Syrian army to find refuge in Lebanon, and his fellow compatriots the Syrian workers in the city of Beirut; a city in which they share the same feeling of being alienated and unwanted and reduced to a negative Syrian identity by Lebanese society. Jointly, they share the pain and fear of losing their home country forever while being unable to construct a life in a city built on oblivion and resentment. (Venice International Film Festival)