Yalla, Baba!

Forty-two years ago Mansour Obeid flew with friends from Lebanon to Brussels, where they got in a car and made the journey back overland. Now his daughter, filmmaker Angie Obeid, invites him to repeat the same trip with her. They have never traveled together before.

They drive past bullet-riddled walls in Bosnia, elsewhere the ghost of communism still lingers and Beirut stirs up many emotions. This highly personal undertaking not only takes us across old and new borders in a changed world—the route through Syria is no longer possible—but also through time and their own lives. There are memories, serious and cheerful moments and two hitchhiking girls who travel along with them for a while.

In the car or together on a bench, their differing views on religion, marriage and life emerge. While Angie has settled in Brussels, the former arts journalist Mansour has remained in his beloved Lebanon, despite war and chaos. But in this candid father-daughter project, we see their bond grow again.