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...
BEIRUT: During spells of overlapping crises, some art forms fare better than others. Streets clogged by outraged demonstrators, emptied by pandemic lockdowns...
HARET HREIK, Lebanon: Villa Slim sits not far from the street sign welcoming motorists to Haret Hreik. If this municipality just south of Beirut exists in the...
BEIRUT: Manu Ferneini’s photo series “A Bigger Room” reflects upon her Lebanese family’s long relationship with their domestic servant Priya. Ferneini says...
REVIEWBEIRUT: Ghida Hachicho’s 2020 short “A crowd forms, partly planned and partly improvised,” is an unconventional depiction of popular demonstration. The...
BEIRUT: “Now I think is the time for us,” Hisham Jaber pauses. “Before, I had this feeling that I should leave. After the [April 4 Beirut Port] blast,...
REVIEW BEIRUT: There is no chanting to be heard during the Tarek Yamani Trio’s Tuesday evening concert at the Beirut Souks shopping mall. The band leader...
REVIEW BEIRUT: Viewing poverty is a complicated matter. Literary and film genres regularly harness human misery – coming-of-age stories, migration tales and,...
REVIEW HAZMIEH, Lebanon: Better late than never, they say.Just south of Furn al-Shubbak’s Chevrolet district there is a shopping mall, whose name suggests it...
BEIRUT: Few would argue that 2020’s been a great year. It’s been so miserable for Lebanon’s creative community that it’s tempting to imagine that, if we could...
BEIRUT: “Things are very bad here,” says curator Amanda Abi Khalil, “but very calm.”These days, you might be envious of anyone invited to spend five weeks in...
BEIRUT: The Goethe Institute is the latest non-state actor to intervene on behalf of Lebanon’s arts sector. The association’s recently unveiled Emergency...
REVIEWBEIRUT: Lebanon’s relatively brief history is littered with significant dates – an independence day, a massacre anniversary, a liberation, an...
BEIRUT: As this wretched year staggers on, Lebanon’s film sector has been given a shot in the arm from two distinct sources. Naturally both originate from...
BEIRUT: Less than three months after the city’s port blast eviscerated nearby residential districts, killing 200 and displacing thousands more, MBC and its...
REVIEWBEIRUT: There’s a tale that’s circulated locally about how Lebanese wines made during wars are “better” than those produced between armed conflicts.This...
BEIRUT: “Why are you and your friends making so much fuss about this blast? That’s what a friend of mine in Paris asked me. ‘There are many blasts there, many...