Karkha: A Village from Lebanon

Karkha: A Village from Lebanon is an award-winning documentary co-produced by Public Matters Lebanon and Spred Studios, created by Julie BouChakra and directed by Nassif Al Rayess as part of the wider Homes & Heroes vision.

Set in the Lebanese village of Karkha, the film looks at belonging through the people, homes, landscapes and memories that keep a place alive long after a single moment has passed.

The film explores the invisible ties that connect generations to land: family homes, familiar roads, inherited rituals, stories repeated across time and the quiet knowledge held by people who stayed.

Karkha becomes both a specific village and a wider Lebanese story about roots, migration, return and memory. For people living in Lebanon and across the diaspora, the question is familiar: what remains of home when distance or time changes our relationship to it?

The film treats heritage as something living, not frozen. Voices, gestures, architecture and everyday details carry as much meaning as formal history.

Directed with a quiet observational approach, the camera stays close to the people and the place, allowing Karkha to reveal itself through conversation, silence and landscape rather than through explanation alone.

Karkha: A Village from Lebanon received Best Arabic Film at the World Film Festival in Cannes in August 2023.

The recognition extended the film beyond the village itself, connecting with audiences who understood the larger emotional territory behind it: heritage, migration, memory and the need to preserve what gives a place meaning.

For Spred, Karkha remains a defining example of documentary work rooted in people first. The scale is intimate. The subject is local. The feeling travels much further.