LOGLINE

Set during the Lebanese revolution, WE NEVER LEFT portrays a heart-wrenching duality between Beirut and New York, an impassioned testament to the Lebanese diaspora’s unrequited but irrepressible love for their homeland.

THE TEAM

LOULWA KHOURY

DIRECTOR / EDITOR/ PRODUCER / CINEMATOGRAPHER

Loulwa Khoury is a New York based film editor, filmmaker born and raised in Beirut. She edited award-winning feature documentaries Paradise Without People (2019), Dusty and Stones (2022). She also edited Traces of Home and Joy Dancer. She is currently directing her first feature documentary, We Never Left. Her other work includes award-winning documentaries Some Kind of Heaven (2020), City of Ghosts (2017) It Will Be Chaos (2018) and An Act of Worship (2022), White Sauce Hot Sauce (2018), The Joneses (2016) and Look At Us Now, Mother (2015). She was one of the fellows of the Karen Schmeer Editing Fellowship and a fellow in the Sundance Co//ab Art of Editing Fellowship, in the DOC NYC x VC Storytelling Incubator cohort as well as a winner of the Creative Power Award.

MARK BECKER

CO-PRODUCER / EDITING CONSULTANT

Mark Becker co-directed and edited the documentary Art and Craft (2014), which was shortlisted for the 2015 Academy Awards, nominated for an Emmy Award, and won recognition with the National Board of Review. Becker directed and edited the Emmy-nominated film Pressure Cooker (2008). He produced, directed and edited Romantico (2005), which was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, and received two Independent Spirit Award nominations. Becker co-wrote and edited the Emmy-nominated documentary Circo (2011), and co-edited the acclaimed Lost Boys of Sudan (2003). He recently premiered his docu-series Instant Life at Sundance 2022.

MARIE-LOUISE “MALOU” ELIA

CO-EDITOR

Marie-Louise ‘Malou’ Elia is a Lebanese screenwriter, director and editor. She studied Film Directing and Screenwriting in Beirut and New York. A Film Independent alumna and a Global Media Makers fellow, Marie-Louise wrote and directed several short films and documentaries. Her latest short “Death and Other Fears” is currently having its festival run. She also edited many documentaries and short fiction films. In 2014, she was selected among the editing talents of Beirut Talents.

In addition to co-writing a comedy series “Men Home La Hon”, Marie-Louise is currently developing three films: The Savior, a feature comedy, "Yearning" a short dramatic film and another feature screenplay We Find You Anywhere, winner of the Most Promising Screenplay prize, second place, at the Cinemai’yat Film Festival (2016).

She is also a lecturer at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts (ALBA) and formerly at Saint Joseph University and the Lebanese University.

YARA EL MURR

ASSOCIATE PRODUCER / ASSISTANT EDITOR

Yara El Murr is an award winning journalist and emerging documentary filmmaker currently based in between Toronto and Beirut. She has covered migration, labor, climate, health, and the reprercussions of Lebanon’s civil war on society in both writing and film. Her documentary work includes WE NEVER LEFT, THE SOIL AND THE SEA (2023), and REVERBERATIONS (2022). She is currently the Engagement Editor at The Green Line Toronto where she leads a community reporting and video-journalism program.

JOELLE KHOURY

MUSIC COMPOSER

Born in Beirut, Joelle Khoury is a composer/pianist who performs contemporary classical music and jazz. For almost two decades, she has composed contemporary classical music pieces and concertos for chamber and philharmonic orchestras, as well as pieces for her own jazz quintet. Rather than “orientalizing” her music, she always thought that, “A true composition is the fruit of a unique idea, developed into a concept, based in what the composer has heard, aiming at expressing an individual point of view, a certain personality. Therefore it is neither ‘western’ nor ‘oriental,’ taking into account the fact that we have all heard numerous styles of music.” She has made five CDs, which include Tumbling Up (jazz quintet); Is It So (jazz quintet); Music and Poetry (chamber music and voice); Dream She Is (opera monodrama in Arabic) and Beirut Jazz 2020 (jazz quintet).

ELIA EL HADDAD

SOUND DESIGNER / SOUND MIXER

Educated, trained and experienced in Recording, Editing, Mixing for Cinema, TV, Radio and Podcast, in addition to his 9+ years of experience as a sound designer and mixer, Elia owns a studio and is a previous lecturer in 2 universities. He’s worked on sound for France 3, BBC and Al Jazeera to name a few. In studios, he’s also worked on numerous projects ranging from award winning films to TV ads, documentaries and Cinema movies. He believes that sound can make a film a total failure or an absolute success, that’s why clients have been trusting him with their projects to ensure the latter.

CHARLES TRABOULSI

COLORIST

Born in Montreal, raised in Beirut and based in Paris, Charles marries his love for drawing, his ease with computers and his need for instant gratification in the form of color grading. He tackles projects big or small, technical or freestyle, in-suite or in-PJs. When he’s not staring at a screen nerding out on work, he can be found staring at a screen nerding out on history, linguistics, martial arts, and other fun stuff.

CASEY FRIEDMAN

MOTION GRAPHICS

Casey Friedman is a queer filmmaker living in Brooklyn, NY, originally from Montclair, NJ. He is a 2015 graduate of Brown University with a B.A. in Sociology. As a filmmaker, he’s interested in the intersection of queerness, botany, colonialism, folklore, and nature.