The One Man Village is a labour of love. Simon El Habre developed and shot this intimate feature documentary about his uncle, farmer Semaan El Habre, over several years: the result is a poignant, stunningly shot portrait that sees the arrival of a major new talent. Semaan is the only remaining resident of Ain El Hazaroun, a village in the mountains around Mount Lebanon; the other villagers, many of them members of El Habre’s extended family, have fled during Lebanon’s fifteen-year-long series of civil wars. Some return for odd days to nostalgically tend to their gardens and semi-derelict homes, knowing they will never move back. El Habre has said he wanted to explore how a man could return, alone, and overcome the “scars of a past full of pain”. The One Man Village alludes to this hidden history of devastating wars between neighbours but keeps the charming, witty and earthy Semaan – and his shed of cows – centre stage, making for a remarkably assured and moving directorial debut. This is a small film that subtly, almost unknowingly, packs an emotional punch, and takes on the big issues – war, religious strife, rural depopulation, the gap between generations – under its breath. The mountain landscape and Semaan’s daily routine caring for his animals are lovingly lensed on HD, by Bassem Fayyad and Mark Karam and beautifully cinematic. Screen International heralded “talent to watch” El Habre’s “painterly vision” and “gift for composition and mood”, and The One Man Village won the jury prize for documentaries at the Dubai International Film Festival. Raising the finance for documentaries in the Levant is an uphill struggle: state funds, if existent, are meagre, and governments and NGOs stretched in other, more obvious directions. El Habre aims for neither a polemic nor a typical TVoriented quasi-analysis – and The One Man Village is as much directed towards Lebanese and Arab audiences as it is to those outside. The film’s measured, personal nature was no doubt encouraged by its producers and funders – the grassroots, passionate indie collective Beirut DC in its first major production, and the Dubai Film Connection.