Cold Cuts has produced short documentaries and music videos since its inception in 2017. Treat Me Like Your Mother is one of its longest-running and most significant projects to date. Built from oral histories and personal archives shared by trans women in Beirut, it has grown into a book, a series of exhibitions, a living photographic archive held by the Arab Image Foundation and a feature film that premiered at IDFA in 2025 and is currently touring internationally through festivals, cinemas and cultural institutions. The project focuses on preserving histories that might otherwise disappear, while allowing the people at their centre to speak in their own voices and on their own terms, providing a different perspective on the Lebanese civil war and the years that followed.
Anya Kneez
A Queen in Beirut
Dir. Mohamad Abdouni
Documentary
10’ 54’’ | 16:9 | Color
Anya Kneez is an Arab Drag Queen who left Brooklyn in the Summer of 2012, after 23 years in America, and moved back home to live with her parents in Beirut, Lebanon. Five years later, at 28, Anya still struggles with the values of a society that remains unable to accommodate her lifestyle. The short form documentary offers a glimpse into the life of the boy who brought Drag from the slums of Brooklyn to the clubs of Beirut.
The film had its world premiere on June 3, 2017 at The Brooklyn Museum in New York.
Enta | إنت
Kabreet | كبريت
Dir. Mohamad Abdouni
Music Video
3’ 31’’ | 16:9 | Color
Yumna Marwan stars in Kabreet's music video for their first single off their sophomore album 'Bidayat'.