After more than a decade, Farah returns home to Tripoli, Lebanon, to care for her aging widowed father, Mustapha only to find her city in crisis. Their generational differences often lead to clashing perspectives on the country’s political instability, making it difficult to communicate with each other. But within this lack of understanding there’s humor and a will to understand. There’s a secret refuge: Mustapha’s weekly all-male poetry club, where a small group of stubborn yet lovable men gather to share poems in classical Arabic over sweets and with an agreement to disagree about everything. In order to connect with her father, Farah decides to join the club and address Mustapha in verses to connect with the poet in him. As Mustapha’s health deteriorates and the October 2019 revolution erupts nationwide, poetry becomes their chance for one last conversation.

Cast & Crew
Producer: Cynthia Choucair
Director: Farah Kassem
Script: Farah Kassem
Director of Photography: Tebbe Schöningh
Production Design: Nour Jarrous
Music: Jon Sensmeier
Sound: Cedric Kayem
Editor: Anders S. Jepsen
Production: Road2Films, in co-production with The Good Company Pictures, Al Jazeera Documentary Channel

Awards
Special Mention, Visions du  Réel, Nyon, Switzerland, 2024

Farah Kassem
Born in Tripoli, Lebanon, Farah Kassem graduated from ALBA University with a Bachelor’s degree in Audio Visual Studies and completed a Masters of Fine Arts in documentary film-making at DocNomads. Farah is both a director and an editor and is currently doing doctoral research in the Arts at KU Leuven and LUCA in Belgium. She has directed several award winning short documentary films that have screened at various international film festivals including Visions du Réel, Warsaw FF, DOK Leipzig, Dubai IFF, and many others. We Are Inside is her debut feature.

Filmography
My Father Looks Like Abdel Nasser (short, 2012), Nettoyer Schaerbeek (2017), You Make a Better Window Than You Do a Door (short, 2017), T(w)o Work (Marianna episode of a documentary series, 2022), We Are Inside (doc., 2024).