Al Hmar
2018 · 22m · Lebanon
Directed by Tariq Keblaoui
Genres: dark comedy, fantasy, historical
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, mythic
In ancient Phoenicia, an old man is conned into believing he sinned by treating a man as his work-donkey for years, and seeks forgiveness from the gods.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A con-artist-as-moral-corrective fable that inverts every expectation about guilt, servitude, and divine mercy—the donkey joke becomes a trap that catches theology itself. Keblaoui's premise is the kind of "wait, WHAT?" that makes consensus critics uncomfortable and makes the film unforgettable.
The film situates itself shrewdly within a lineage of Brechtian allegory and Buñuelian spiritual absurdism, using Phoenician framing to distance and sharpen its critique of power and penance with formal precision.
The choice to play the con entirely straight—treating the old man's gullibility not as setup for comeuppance but as the film's emotional core—is what lifts what could be a sketch into something genuinely haunting and economical.
Reviews
Al Hmar is a heavily symbolic short film that translates the absurdities of folktales and their superstitious consequences in a really humorous manner. Honestly speaking, Al Hmar is a really humorous and entertaining short film that actually requires attention and analysis for one to fully enjoy it!