After moving to a new country for love, a filmmaker creates a loving portrait of a Beirut thrift shop that embodies the spirit of her home in Lebanon.
SYNOPSIS
Cherine’s Beirut stands for joy, beauty, and creativity. But most importantly it is home. And the tiny vintage shop Dépôt-Vente represents all of that. Whenever she feels down, she goes there. Nawal, the eccentric owner, has her model one of Dépôt-Vente’s upcycled outfits for the shop’s Instagram account, and the world suddenly seems bearable again. Outside the shop’s walls, however, Beirut is falling apart. When she meets the love of her life while travelling abroad, Cherine decides to start a new life with him in the US. While she gladly leaves behind the daily challenges of living in a broken country, cutting ties with home proves difficult. Cherine desperately attempts to hold onto what she lost by making a film about Dépôt-Vente, the place that embodies all the good parts of Beirut that the world seldom sees. Cherine films Claudia, Marc, and other youth working at Dépôt-Vente, and over time, she documents the changes the shop brings about in them. Marc, a designer who hides his queerness from his family, gains the confidence to live life as an openly gay man and becomes a drag artist. Claudia, a shy fashion student, tests her imagination by making wild garments out of everything from discarded gold fabric to leather handbags. Marc and Claudia aren’t the only ones changing, though. Over time, Cherine realizes that while many things remain, nothing is ever truly the same – not even Dépôt-Vente. And after five years of filming, she is finally ready to let go.
Director Statement
I have been a customer and a friend of Nawal’s since 2013 and have witnessed Dépôt-Vente evolve into the beacon of acceptance, creativity, and freedom it is today. Similarly, Nawal, the shop’s owner, has seen me navigate job changes, heartbreaks, and family drama. Playing dress-up with her has been both liberating and healing. I was one of the first customers Nawal photographed, and to this day, we still enjoy impromptu shoots as much as we did in the early days. I have met more people at Dépôt-Vente than anywhere else in Beirut, individuals I wouldn't have encountered anywhere else. When I decided to pursue filmmaking, I wanted to tell stories that resonate with me and reveal a facet of Beirut seldom brought to light. Dépôt-Vente represents everything I love about my city and its inhabitants: their chaos, warmth, lightness, and unpredictability. Claudia, Marc, and the others who worked at the shop—managing it, designing and upcycling clothes, shooting content for social media, and more—share my love for this place and are as passionate as I am about showing it to the world. Dépôt-Vente gives us all a sense of belonging and empowerment, helping us become the people we want to be, with the support of Nawal and the community. After spending so much time there, I have built strong bonds with all the youths who are part of the Depot-Vente community, and I feel proud to be able to depict them on screen.
Supporter Statement
“We are extremely proud to be supporting this diverse group of talented filmmakers as we embark on a year-long journey to advance their projects by helping them navigate craft, industry access, career development, and beyond,” said Kiyoko McCrae, Program Director at Chicken & Egg Films. She continued, “This year’s projects are anchored in themes of home: what it means to nurture and protect one’s community, as well as what it means to survive and thrive in the face of displacement. In our increasingly fraught and fragmented world, these projects inspire us to reflect on the question, “what is home?””
"Home can mean… finding your way in a place that’s wholly new, as in Cherine Karam’s Dépôt-Vente about a Beirut thrift shop that embodies the hometown Karam left behind."
ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)
Director/Producer Cherine Karam
Cherine Karam has over a decade of experience in cultural production in Beirut before transitioning into filmmaking. Her feature debut, Dépôt-Vente, won the Malmö Arab Film Festival Pitching Competition, earned a scholarship at the Thessaloniki Film Festival Pitching Forum, and participated in DOK Leipzig’s Co-Pro Market, as well as Stockholm's Tempo Documentary Pitch. Cherine is alum of the Close Up Initiative and received the jury prize at the Middle East Now Festival 2023 in the Close Up showcase. Her documentary short, Yellow is the Color of Happiness, premiered in competition at Tempo Documentary Festival in 2024.
Mario Adamson & Ashley J. Smith are the creative-producing team at the helm of Sisyfos Film in Stockholm, Sweden. Together, they have cultivated a diverse portfolio that includes the acclaimed Motherland (DOX:Award at CPH:DOX 2023 and an EFA nomination), How to Save a Dead Friend (Grand Jury Award, Doc NYC; EFA Documentary Film Selection; ACID Cannes, 2022), and The Scars of Ali Boulala (WP Tribeca Film Festival 2021, Tempo Documentary Award in 2022, Swedish Academy Award nomination). Currently, Ashley and Mario are producing a slate of projects, including the documentary features Dépôt-Vente, Elevated, Bachman: The Story of Stephen King’s Pseudonym, The Violent Skin, Lust for Life, the narrative feature Demands of a Teenage Heart, and several short films and immersive experiences. As Managing Directors and Artistic Directors of Sisyfos Film, Ashley and Mario strive for collaborative and inclusive approaches to filmmaking.
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