Where Do We Go Now?

Before Capernaum made Nadine Labaki an international name, Where Do We Go Now? announced her as a filmmaker of extraordinary warmth and nerve. The premise: in a remote Lebanese village, Christian and Muslim women have been burying their sons side by side for years, victims of sectarian violence. One day, they decide they've had enough.

Their methods are desperate and comic: they hire Ukrainian dancers to distract the men, destroy the village's only TV so they can't watch inflammatory news, spike the men's food with hashish. Labaki herself stars as Amale, the Christian café owner who falls in love with the Muslim painter Rabih — a romance threatened by the same forces the women are trying to defuse.

The film's tone shifts radically in its final act, when the comedy of the women's scheme gives way to genuine tragedy. The ending — the women discovering that their sons have been killed in a clash they couldn't prevent — is devastating. Labaki's message is clear: women can keep the peace, but they cannot stop the war alone.