Lebanese film-maker and screenwriter Better known outside Lebanon for her documentary and feature films Chahal's subjects, for the most part, centred on the tiny and politically troubled Mediterranean country of her birth. Her work gained numerous international prizes, most recently the 2003 Silver Lion at the Venice film festival for her film Le Cerf-Volant (The Kite), a love story that takes place on the Golan Heights in a Druze village separated by the Israeli occupation. Some of her early work includes Nos Gurres Imprudentes (Our Heedless Wars), Souha: Surviving Hell, Ecrans de Sable (Sand Screens), and Les Infideles in 1997. Her 1999 film, Civilisees (A Civilised People) - scathing feature about the Lebanese war - enjoyed critical success abroad, winning a prize in New York. Chahal was born in Tripoli, Lebanon. She studied film at the Louis Lumiere School in Paris. She died of cancer in Paris.