102 minutes
Wednesday, July 8 at 7pm
Presented by Mizna
Jocelyne Saab’s narrative feature, set amid the Lebanese Civil War, tells the story of a passionate teenager who forms a (mostly) platonic bond with an older abstract painter.
As a filmmaker known primarily for her documentary work, Jocelyne Saab’s The Razor’s Edge is one of her few narrative features. The film tells the story of platonic love between a young refugee from southern Lebanon and a painter depressed by the ongoing Lebanese Civil War. Through its story and characters, the film traverses spaces that have now disappeared, taking viewers into corners of Beirut not often shown in films made during the conflict. Presented in a new 4K restoration, The Razor’s Edge merges narrative structure with astute documentary precision to display the social impacts of violence on Lebanon during the war.
*This screening is also a fundraiser for mutual aid on the ground in Lebanon.*
Direct donations will be encouraged during the event to benefit the Ghassan Abu Sitta Children’s fund, dedicated to providing medical attention to children who need it the most and helping to relieve the medical sector in Palestine and Lebanon.
A Several Futures release. Presented in partnership with Several Futures and Metrograph. Additional screenings are being held in other cities–stay tuned for more info.
In 2026, Mizna celebrates the twentieth edition of our flagship program, the Twin Cities Arab Film Festival. We mark this milestone with a year-long, multi-venue program, Looking Forward, Looking Back, which centers images from the history of SWANA filmmaking and our past festivals. Through this framework, we confront the visual record, demanding more from the archive than a sentimental look at the past. While SWANA films have been continually plundered, twisted, and aligned to colonial narratives, this year, Mizna’s film programming considers what overlooked, liberatory lessons the past might offer the present and future. With this goal in mind, we present selections by former Mizna festival curators alongside new restorations of SWANA cinema, drawing radical new meanings from the objects that remain.
Relased 1985
Directed by Jocelyne Saab