Director: Ghassan Saleh
Country: Lebanon, India
Language: Arabic | English | Nepali
Year: 2025
Run Time: 92 mins
Global History in a Cup of Premium Darjeeling Tea
Kanchenjunga begins with a photograph taken in Darjeeling: a tea plucker in a blue dress, smiling in the middle of the fields. Years later, Saleh returns to search for her. Moving through tea estates, workers’ homes, markets, archives, and conversations with photographers, activists, drivers, estate managers, and tea workers, the film uncovers the colonial residues and capitalist structures behind one of the world’s most celebrated teas. Back home in South Lebanon where his grandmother Kamela once ran a small tea and coffee shop during years of war and occupation, he is able to connect the two women through labor, survival, and memory.
Director:
Ghassan Saleh is a Lebanese filmmaker, photographer, and visual researcher whose work moves between documentary cinema, essay film, political memory, and poetic experimentation. Raised in South Lebanon, in a landscape shaped by war, occupation, displacement, and survival, he first picked up a camera during the 2006 war: an experience that deeply shaped his relationship to images, witnessing, and the ethics of looking. His short works include The Kiss (2020), A Concrete Memory (2021), officially selected at Riga Pasaules Film Festival 2023, and FYAL: Two Anthropologists in Search of a Tribe (2021), co-directed with Joseph Puglisi.
Terms & Conditions
• One ticket admits one individual.
• Student Tickets will only be accepted with the presentation of a valid student ID at the door. Organizers reserve the right to refuse admission in case of a lack of student identification.
• All attendees agree to the code of care at FSA’26.
• Late admission is at the organizer’s discretion, and no refunds will be provided after the event starts.
• No refunds will be allocated once the ticket has been purchased.
• Tickets without a valid QR code will not be accepted.
• Right to entry is reserved.
• Intoxicated attendees may be barred from entry.
• Bottles, food items, beverages, tobacco, cigarettes, lighters, and matches are prohibited inside the screening halls.
• Helmets, sharp objects, bags, weapons, explosives, flammable items, and intoxicating agents, including alcohol, are strictly prohibited inside the venue.
• In case of accidents, including those resulting in death, organizers and performers will not be held liable.
• Persons under 16 years of age may not enter unless accompanied by an adult guardian.
• Parking around the event venue is at your own risk.