67 minutes / Color
English; Arabic / English subtitles
Release: 2016
Copyright: 2016
Domestic work is a real market in Lebanon, segmented according to the national and ethnic origins of the workers and in which the Lebanese employer is master and the worker the property. Zein owns a domestic worker agency in Beirut. He arranges for Asian and African women to work in Lebanese households and assists his clients in choosing "mail-order" housemaids that will best suit their needs. Advertisement, justice, police are on his side. He decides to open his agency for us.
"Very cinematic... Shows in a very pragmatic, clear and elegant manner the brutality of the system, never exposing the victims... A striking film, which raises awareness of the existence of the outcasts of globalization." —DOKfest Munich Film Festival
"A new documentary jewel that will shake consciences and reveal the vibrant reality of a country like Lebanon." —Filmin Magazine
"A film that is extraordinarily elegant and brave in its simplicity. The brilliant camerawork and [editing] lead us through the film with precise consistency... depicting the complex and brutal exploitation in such a way that only towards the end we believe to have understood its entire scope." —Berlin Film Festival
"Chilling; raises questions of human dignity and morality [and reveals] the grim truth of the brutal reality that exists behind closed doors." —Al Jadid Magazine
""Recommended, especially for libraries with strengths in Middle Eastern studies. Succeeds at unfolding a dark reality of economic globalization." —Educational Media Reviews Online (EMRO)
"Maher Abi Samra's disturbing documentary A MAID FOR EACH takes a cool-headed look at a Beirut agency that traffics—a charged word but a pretty accurate one—in domestic help. Watching the film feels like viewing a chilling reality through a two-way mirror... Abi Samra's artful, formalistic methodology succinctly exposes the dehumanization process." —Variety
Select Accolades
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Reza Haeri | 2010 | 31 minutes | Color
Seven Brazilian teenagers film their housemaids, exposing issues of class, race, and gender in their families, and in their country.
Gabriel Mascaro | 2013 | 76 minutes | Color | English | English subtitles
A portrait of two women activists in the Hezbollah, and an examination of the personal, social and political factors of their commitment to this Islamic movement in Lebanon.
Maher Abi-Samra | 2001 | 49 minutes | Color | English
