Yesterday the Eye Didn't Sleep

Un Certain Regard, Cannes 2026

Original language: Arabic

Subtitles: Romanian, English

Directed by: Rakan Mayasi

Country: Belgium, Lebanon, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia

Year of production: 2026

Length: 100 minutes

Genre: Poetic Drama

In the quiet fog of the Bekaa Valley, on the border between Lebanon and Syria, someone sets fire to a truck, and with it a spark of trouble spreads through a tightly woven Bedouin community. Gamra is gone—maybe hiding, maybe running—and her cousin Yasser takes to the roads to find her. The deeper he looks, the more he runs into ghosts, old grudges and the slow, burning logic of revenge. Back home, his sisters, Jawaher and Rim, are chosen to make things right. They are not asked, they are offered. One is calm, the other resisting, but both know how quickly girls can be traded for peace. The days pass. Wood is cut. Wool is washed. Eyes are cast downward. And yet everything shifts beneath the surface: a secret song, a nervous goodbye, a lipstick smudge in the dark. This is a story about what happens in the quiet, between fields, behind curtains, inside vans. It is about women who carry too much, men who speak in codes and a land that holds its breath, waiting for something to end…or begin.

Credits

Rakan Mayasi – Director

Rakan Mayasi, Wahid Ajmi, Pôl Seif – Script

Casting

Rim Al Mawla

Jawaher Al Mawla

Yasser Al Mawla