“When I returned to Sidon in 1983 it had just been occupied. My sister destroyed several documents in a panic because the Zionist soldiers were coming, and I lost many of my mementos. Friends were killed and places I loved were destroyed. I wanted to capture memories that could not be destroyed. The city had survived and many people I knew were still living there and taking stock of their losses. Actually, everyone in the documentary was someone I loved, and so the film was in many ways an extended form of my memory”. Through people’s stories,The Upper Gate weaves the history of south Lebanon’s city of Sidon.