Dirty Difficult Dangerous(HKAFF 2022)

Star-crossed lovers Ahmed and Mehdia couldn’t be more different — he’s a Syrian refugee selling scrap metal for a living while she’s an Ethiopian domestic worker employed by eccentrics — and they struggle to find time for the briefest embrace. Both are caged and both desire escape from their lives in modern-day Beirut. Yet when they finally grasp the chance to flee and start over, Ahmed’s mysterious disease worsens: his body, already expelling iron and rust, is slowly and irreversibly turning into metal. French-Lebanese filmmaker Wissam Charaf draws inspiration from real-life suffering and social problems, molding his themes into an allegorical fairy tale that’s fresh, unexpected and utterly cinematic.