It can be argued that the generation of Lebanese filmmakers who experienced the country’s civil war (1975–1990) also saw the country’s cinema come into its own as a medium for artistic expression and exploration.The lived experience of violence and the trauma of a civil conflict inspired the emergence of a politically-engaged auteur cinema where subjectivity—rather than objectivity—found a voice, a language in film.
The films in this program illustrate how filmmakers from this and subsequent generations have attempted to transpose the complexity of experience through the singular poetics of film.
Co-curated by Marie Losier and Rasha Salti
Special thanks to Rasha Salti and Livia Alexander, ArteEast, the Cultural Services of the French Embassy,
and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Cinéma at FIAF is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State agency.
Maroun Bagdadi (France; 1991, 97 min.) May 4, 2010
Bagdadi is one of Lebanon’s pioneering filmmakers. Out of Life, one of his most accomplished films, is the deeply emotional, real-life story of the capture and captivity of a French journalist by Lebanese militias during the war.
Rasha Salti, film curator and Creative Director of ArteEast, will introduce the 7pm screening
Jocelyne Saab (Lebanon; 1994, 101 min. Digibeta PAL; US$500)
This imaginative exploration of history follows two women in post-civil war Beirut, whom upon meeting a film collector, sift through movies and reconstruct a vision of their now devastated city.
Simon El-Habre (Lebanon; 2009, 86 min. DVD/Digibeta PAL; Screening Fee US$500)
Semaan is leading a quiet life on his farm in the small village of Ain al-Halazoun in the Lebanese mountains. The hamlet was completely emptied and destroyed in combats during the civil war in Lebanon between 1975 and 1990. Today, many years after an official reconciliation, its inhabitants, who are all from one family, regularly go back to the village to cultivate their plots of land or visit their houses and always leave before sunset.
In his comforting and humorous film Simon El Habre observes the life in his quasi ghost village and tries to reflect on the collective and individual memory in a country that seems to live in a collective amnesia and is vulnerable to a new civil war. More
Carlos Chahine (Lebanon/France; 2008, 25 min. Digibeta PAL, US$200)
Karim, a frenchman, thought that he was through with his faraway past and his homeland. But, when back in Lebanon for a few days, he discovers that it is not the case. In Chahine's directorial debut, The North Road, tackles the theme of "Exile". This strong and strange bond that links individuals to a past world, to a homeland, and to all the loved ones that have since disappeared. More
Ghassan Salhab (Lebanon; 2007, 101 min.) May 25, 2010
Each morning, Beirut awakens to a new victim of what seems to be a serial killer. Victims are found emptied of their blood. In Beirut, a forty-year-old doctor, Khalil, begins to experience strange symptoms that will destabilize him and transform his life. An imperceptible connection links Khalil to these victims, and more precisely to their ever elusive murderer… More
Rania Attieh (Lebanon; 2009, 15 min. Digibeta PAL; Screening Fee US$150 )
Only a few hours into his shift, a cab driver in Tripoli finds a lone boy sitting in the backseat of his car. The boy's peculiar silence forces the cabbie to deal with his most unique passenger yet. A view of everyday life through the eyes of a boy who cannot speak.
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Gilles Tarazi (Lebanon; 2008, 23 min. Digibeta PAL; Screening Fee US$195)
Farid, a young man, has received his visa for emigration and ties up loose ends during his last night in Beirut. Alternately witty and melancholic, reflective and brash, the film captures the nervous energy of bidding farewells to the people and city that make one’s home. More
Told posthumously, in the tone of hard-boiled crime, Ziad, a student living in a rough neighborhood at the outskirts of Beirut, gives an account of his death. More
Talal Khoury (Lebanon; 2009, 19 min. Digibeta PAL; Screening Fee $US100 )
A routine day for Khaled—he must deal with the madness of a friend, his wife, whom he calls “Monster”, and other inconveniences.
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