Sharjah Art Foundation

Sharjah Biennial 16

Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
6 Febuary — 15 June 2025

A Perfect Day, 2005

Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige
A Perfect Day, 2005
Blu-Ray, colour
88 minutes
Film still

Synopsis

Stuck in a traffic jam, Malek catches a fleeting glance of the beautiful Zeina, the woman he loves. He desperately tries to get through to her by text message, but she does not want to see him. She vanishes into the throng of midday Beirut traffic. The young man has a syndrome, which interrupts his breathing during sleep. Whenever he stops moving, he dozes off adding to his disorientation. His mother Claudia has still not accepted his father’s disappearance after 15 years. She stays at home should her husband return; Malek drives around the city alone in his car. Each of them try to live with a void of lost love. But today may be the “perfect day ” to lay their ghosts to rest. Malek is taking his hesitant mother to declare her husband officially dead in the “absence of a body”. And that evening, in a trendy nightclub where the young of Beirut go to dance and forget their troubles, Zeina looks ready to give Malek a second shot at the love for which he yearns.