33 days (Drama) - ٣٣ يوم

Trailer for the drama 33 days

Not to be confused with the documentary, 33 days is a historical drama that attempts to build a feature during the start of the Israeli war against Lebanon in 2006. It depicts the first few days at Ayta el Chaab during the 33 days of the war where Israel mercilessly shelled and bombed indiscriminately Lebanon, especially the southern villages. The armed resistance and the population manages to fight back. As advertised, the joint Iranian-Lebanese production resulted in a big budget movie bloated with high comparse number and special effects such as explosions and computer-generated imagery (CGI). The integration of the effects enjoyed an elegant level of realism. The cast members included some acclaimed actors and some young ones. Carmen Lebboss acting dwarfs all the other performances, this huge gap is somewhat annoying to the viewer. Darine Hamze is proving her talent as an actor by selecting a role that differs radically from her previous ones each time. She manages to deliver some acceptable performance despite the use of the Hebrew which she learned to play the associated role. Unlike the cast and the special effects, the script lacks polishing and reviews. This experience should help the movie makers in the future to learn from current mistakes to produce better films. While this movie may entertain the viewers, personally, I find the same titled documentary a more educating and mind catching reel. Note that while the documentary focuses on the war away from the front line from refugees and civilians perspective for the whole 33 days, this current drama point the camera almost exclusively on the fought battles in the southern villages for the first few days only not 33 days as the title misleads. Another note, the finishing credits doesn't use Arabic at all in the role description of the crew.

Update: Some theaters in Lebanon canceled or postponed the screening of the movie. This is sad news, it can be only considered as a form of censorship, not a government censorship, but rather politically motivated one.

Beirut Hotel (review) - بيروت بالليل

Trailer for "Beirut Hotel"

Lebanese audience watched this feature in defiance to the infamous ban that is imposed, and proved that such censorship is rather meaningless in a connected world. Arte channel, a main contributor to the movie, screened Beirut Hotel earlier in January. The movie was scheduled to be released in Lebanese theaters prior to the TV release, but the ban prevented this from happening. The movie is carefully made, and it was selected for many festivals, there is no clear reason why it wasn't selected for Cannes this year although it was supported by "The Atelier". The actress Hamze was playing one of her best roles in her career, thanks to Arbid's direction. Nevertheless, few problems arose related to the erotic scenes in the original trailer. Overall, Arbid is proving once more her great talent by a successful third movie attracting audience (Western and Arabs). The plot revolves around a love affair intersecting with a spy story. As in her previous movie, the main cast is divided between a French actor, and an Arab one. They met by chance, and the French begin stalking the Arab until they bond together. The cinematography is rather eye-candy, revealing an appealing Beirut in a colorful picture. The unfortunate ban have contributed to raising awareness among the population and promoting the movie (approximately 1.5 million watched the TV release including 700,000 in France alone + 34,000 on the web). The last chance to watch Beirut Hotel on arte is scheduled on February 4th 01:40 GMT+1.

Beirut Hotel - بيروت بالليل

Trailer for Beirut Hotel

The year 2010 was a busy year in Lebanese movies production. After the successful release of Stray Bullet, two more movies produced in 2010 are very promising, Where do we go now? made it to the Cannes selection, but another movie that was also rumored to make it to the official selection was that of the prominent director Danielle Arbid. The movie is called Beirut Hotel, and the trailer gets us impatient until the release of the full feature. Beirut Hotel is the third long feature by this distinguished director. We can feel from the few scenes in the trailer the presence of the flesh and violence in an artistic way as an essential ingredients as we've seen before in previous movies of Arbid. I hope to watch it very soon in Lebanese theaters.

Update: On the eve of the DIFF opening, Lebanese censorship committee decided to cancel the screening of the movie in Lebanon theaters that were scheduled to debut in January.

Update 2: Below a new released Music Clip for the original song Sa'at Sa'at  directed by Daniele Arbid, composed by Zeid Hamdan and performed by Darine Hamze.