Do You Love Me (2025) NDNF 2026

Portrait of Lebanon the place and the people as seen in narrative and documentary footage

Unconvenrtional and not possessing a narrative story  the film is more interested in putting us in a mental and emotional space so that we understand this place called Lebanon. Seeming random images  and sounds slowly form  an cinematic sense of place. Its a place of war and humor and life and destruction and ultimately humanity. No matter what we see we are never not aware of the people on the screen of just off of it.

I got to this film late in regard to New Directors New Films. The write up made it sound like another film I saw within the last year so I thought I had seen it but had not reviewed it. When I was sent the film I took a look so that I could write it up for the festival. I was shocked because I realized I had not seen it.

More experiemental in approach than what most people are used to, DO YOU LOVE ME is not going to work for everyone. Some people need hand holding and so direction to enjoy a film. This is a film that throws a lot of things at us and asks us to assemble them. Some connections are obvious, some are not. The result is a film that you will want to see with friends before dinner so that you can get a bite to eat and discuss it.

There is much to discuss here.

One of the best films at this year's New Directors New Films, it's one of the few films I think will have a long life after the festival (beyond it having an American release). This will be a film people discuss for years.