- Title: Stories from the Arab world depicted on the big-screen in Beirut festival
- Date: 15th June 2022
- Summary: BEIRUT, LEBANON (JUNE 10, 2022) (REUTERS) ATTENDEES GATHERING AT BEIRUT SOUKS CINEMACITY AT THE OPENING NIGHT OF BEIRUT CINEMA DAYS FESTIVAL SOUNDBITE (Arabic) LEBANESE FILMMAKER ATTENDING THE FESTIVAL, AHMAD GHOSSEIN, SAYING: “In Beirut, it is very important for the cinema festival to return. To me personally, there was a lot of enthusiasm and it came as a gift after th
- Embargoed: 29th June 2022 11:14
- Keywords: Beirut Lebanon cinema crisis exhibition festival film
- Location: BEIRUT, LEBANON
- City: BEIRUT, LEBANON
- Country: Lebanon
- Topics: Arts/Culture/Entertainment,Film,Middle East
- Reuters ID: LVA001494915062022RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: As Lebanon enters the summer season, a series of films from various Arabic-speaking countries are being featured at the long-running Beirut Cinema Days film festival which has returned to the crisis-stricken country after a three-year hiatus.
In a break from the past, attendees are now able to attend for free -- a move that artistic director Riham Assi said aimed to make the festival more accessible in a country where most people are struggling to make ends meet due to a 2019 economic meltdown.
“The economic crisis has brought hardships on everyone, fuel is expensive, diesel is expensive, cinema tickets are very expensive, and there is no more (as many) cinema theatres,†Assi said during the festival’s opening night on Friday (June 10).
“So we decided to make all the screenings free of charge to encourage people to come watch the films because this is not a luxury, it is their right, and it is a breather for everyone," she added.
The festival’s 11th edition launched with the screening of ‘Farha’, an award-winning feature film by Jordanian writer and director Darin Sallam, based on a true story of a 14-year-old Palestinian girl’s experience of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
“The idea is based on a true story and event that happened to a girl. This girl was one of the people who survived in 1948, she arrived to Syria and in Syria she shared her story with a young woman. This woman grew up, got married and had a daughter with whom she shared this story, and this daughter is me. So, you can say that this story has travelled through the years until it reached me, and this story stayed on my mind,†Sallam said.
A number of other films tackling issues from across the Middle East have made their way to the festival, including ‘Homemade Stories’, a documentary by Syrian filmmaker Nidal Al-Debs chronicling his experience with exile and nostalgia.
In a similar vein, Lebanese director Ely Dagher will be closing the festival with ‘The Sea Ahead’, a film that reflects on contemporary Lebanon through the lens of Jana, a young Lebanese woman who returns to Lebanon and finds herself attempting to reconnect with a life she left behind long ago.
An exhibition titled ‘In This Place, Reels of Beirut’ is also running as part of the festival, depicting different parts of the capital between the years 1935 and 1972 through short clips and images.
(Production: Issam Abdallah, Ahmad al-Kerdi, Maya Saad, Rajaa Bint Talal) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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