BEIRUT: Discussions of Lebanese society tend to dwell upon difference. Textbook histories invariably point out that the population is divided into an array of...
BEIRUT: The good news is, those unable to watch Awad Awad’s “Tanfisa” at Masrah al-Madina Saturday evening may be able to do so at some point in the future....
BEIRUT: “We nearly canceled this event two days before it started,” recalls Amanda Abi Khalil. “It was a huge decision to go ahead because it coincided with a...
BEIRUT: For the past few years, Masrah al-Madina has staged “Mishkal” (kaleidoscope), a festival designed to showcase young and emerging artists, across the...
BEIRUT: Christian Petzold’s “Undine” looks very much like a love story. While it never stops being that, exactly, the filmmaker deftly nudges his sunny...
BEIRUT: After a long illness, Borhane Alaouie passed away in Brussels Thursday following a cardiac arrest. With his departure, the final member of Lebanon’s...
BEIRUT: “You should know that we’ve already started working. Claire Cuyaubère and Cécile Rodier, two ladies from Paris’ Institut National du Patrimoine...
BEIRUT: “It’s a real problem right now, this electricity thing,” Ghassan Salhab says, checking his phone. “I’m trying to edit an essay film right now ... When...
BEIRUT: Among the simplest looking figurative works at Marfa’ these days is Omar Fakhoury’s acrylic-on-canvas piece from 2021, “Corn Plant.” “I was walking...
BEIRUT: For its 16th edition, Ecrans du réel’s short film program is dedicated to Lebanese works released since 2019. This brief selection, four works in all,...
BEIRUT: “There’s a project I’ve thought of many times. I get really excited about it, then leave it.” Marwan Rechmaoui takes an energetic drag off his...
BEIRUT: COVID-19 variants being what they are, event organizers have relearned an important lesson. ‘You snooze, you lose.’So the Metropolis Association’s...
BEIRUT: A filmmaker is escorted to the office of a French producer. From behind his desk, the producer flips through the filmmaker’s script, reciting how his...
BEIRUT: The zombie apocalypse of political negligence, swelling poverty and economic contraction staggers on. Happily, Lebanon’s COVID numbers have...
BEIRUT: “After we got back from Doha, I figured out what kind of series I want to make,” said Mohamed Berro. “It’s somewhere between...
BEIRUT: On the evening of May 15, gunmen broke into Bethlehem’s Dar Jacir art center, trashed its offices and equipment and stole a number of items –...
BEIRUT: Casual consumers of MENA region cinema sometimes remark on the sameness of its images. It’s not just that all those Arab Spring docs resemble one...
BEIRUT: Among the pockmarks of our species’ plague year (now in sudden-death overtime, or something) has been more-or-less-free online diversion. The quality...
BEIRUT: The 2020 port explosion provoked different reactions in filmmakers. For those who were in the midst of production that August, the blast posed one...
BEIRUT: Military occupation inflicts various absurdities on those occupied. When it goes on for decades, as in Palestine, the stupidity comes to shape your...
BEIRUT: It’s not been an extinction event exactly, but the crises of 2020 have been tough on artists and the cultural community generally. Though its impact...
BEIRUT: “But I’m sure it’ll impact them one way or another, even indirectly. If not ... ” The movement of Ghassan Salhab’s face had stalled some time ago. Now...
REVIEWBEIRUT: When the 93rd Academy Awards ceremony is staged next month, one title from the Arab world will be in the running. “The Man Who Sold His Skin,”...
BEIRUT: There’s an aesthetic of dereliction that’s familiar to any place where ruins are part of the landscape. In some cases, Rome say, age and monumentality...
BEIRUT: Joana Hadjithomas recalls having to say goodbye to her best friend. It was 1982, not a good year in Lebanon’s 1975-90 Civil War, and her pal’s family...