Actress and first-time feature director Nadine Labaki has fashioned a good-hearted film addressing issues rarely seen on Western screens -- the daily concerns and frustrations, the triumphs and failures, and the familial and amorous problems faced by a group of Lebanese woman who gather to swap tales at a Beirut beauty shop.

Labaki stars as Layale, mistress of a married man, who now accepts that his promises about leaving his wife are as empty as her heart has become. She seeks solace in shop conversation with Nisrine (Yasmine Al Masri) and Rima (Joanna Moukarzel), the latter coming to the realization that maybe heterosexuality is not for her, and the former preoccupied with a surgical procedure that will make it appear to her fiance that she is still a virgin. Jamale (Gisele Aouad) is having a crisis about aging while seamstress Rose (Sihame Haddad) is finding that caring for her older, disturbed sister is preventing her from fulfilling her on life.

Lest this audience favorite at the Cannes Film Festival seem like a soap opera, Labaki also deals with issues related to both the Christian and Muslim religions and how women are viewed by both. In the end, her aim is to create a collective humanist portrait of Lebanese women today and put to rest some of the myths and stereotypes that seem so prevalent in the media these days.

-- Vancouver Film Festival