A portrait of workers in exile, the film is an empathetic encounter with people who have lost their past and their future, locked in the recurring present. The director creates an essay documentary of Syrian construction workers, building new skyscrapers in Beirut on the ruins caused by the Lebanese civil war. At the same time their own houses are being bombed in Syria. A curfew prohibits them from leaving the construction site after work. Every night in their pit below the skyscraper the news from their homeland and the memories of the war chase them. Mute and imprisoned in the cement underground, they must endure until the new day arrives where the hammering and welding drowns out their nightmares.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Ziad Kalthoum (1981, Homs, Syria) is a filmmaker currently living in Berlin. He holds a degree in film studies. In his documentary Oh My Heart, he portrayed a group of Kurdish women who have chosen to live in a society without men. The film was banned in Syria due to political reasons. In 2012, during the outbreak of the Syrian revolution, he began working on his first feature film while serving a compulsory military service. Refusing to fight his own people, Kalthoum deserted from the Syrian Army in 2013 and fled to Beirut where he started to work on another feature documentary, Taste of Cement. The film has been traveling to festivals around the world and has won various awards.