Ahmad Ghossein on Absurdist Comedy ‘The Side Effects of Trusting Life’

Five years after his feature debut “All This Victory” took the Grand Prize and the audience award at Venice’s Critics’ Week, Lebanese filmmaker Ahmad Ghossein is gearing up to shoot his next film. The filmmaker’s sophomore effort, “The Side Effects of Trusting Life,” was selected as part of this year’s Thessaloniki Film Festival’s Agora Crossroads Co-Production Forum, where it took the Midpoint Consulting Award.

“The new film is challenging because of what is going on in Lebanon but I wrote it before it all,” Ghossein told Variety, referring not only to the current war with Israel but the turmoil the country has faced in the last five years. “In 2019, Lebanon collapsed completely — economically, politically and socially. It was an example of how capitalism and the new liberalism failed. If you want to look at the banking system and how it is failing worldwide, just look at Beirut. That image was very strong and I found myself in survival mode, which inspired the dark humor.”

“The Side Effects of Trusting Life” follows Lama, a young woman who starts having hearing issues due to panic attacks following the loss of her job during the Lebanon economic crisis. Medically advised to avoid anxiety-inducing situations, she moves back to her native village but is quickly thrust back into Beirut and into the heart of an ever-spiraling sequel of maddening events. The film will be produced by Lebanon’s Abbout Productions and co-produced by Germany’s Twenty Twenty Vision Filmproduktion and Norway’s DUO film.

In his director’s statement, Ghossein says that Lama, like him, “becomes powerless after losing her job, witnessing the city’s deterioration while others seek an escape. In Beirut, nothing works—there’s no electricity, water or money. We are prisoners of that incapacity.” According to Ghossein, the film will be “heavily choreographed” and offer viewers a tangible insight into the chaos of…