Young Talents

Watching Lebanese shorts is always an amusing experience. The only bad thing about them, is that they are dispersed and not always easy to find: most of them are not available online, the rest might not be available in high quality or HD.
I believe the young Lebanese should not hesitate in posting their videos online, I find that vimeo provides a good place for artists to share their creations in their original quality.
Few months ago, I spotted on vimeo Chadi Younes page, and was amused by his stylish videos and the classy art. The finesse of his work uncovers this artist as one with a bright forthcoming carrier .

Haflet Taraf by Rima Kcheich - حفلة ترف لريما خشيش

The song by Rima khcheich in the above video only adds to the value of the artwork, which both emphasis on the ongoing situation in Lebanon and the Arab world.

Among the available online Lebanese artworks, I found a good short film depicting what a Lebanese director endure in order to guarantee enough financial support for a given work. Wissam Smayra was lucky to gather in that film what some calls Lebanese "artists' constellation" with major directors, with Nadine Labaki playing a major role.

Es'alni Ana by Sofia Marrikh - اسألني أنا لصوفيا مرّيخ

The above video is one video is a striking one by Smayra, the sensual images and cinematography are not matched in any other work I've seen before, I rate the surreal yet classic video as a success, and believe others agree.

The list of Lebanese artists cannot be covered in one post, but I hope in the future I'll be able to cover other works as I did in the case of Beirut After Shave before the release of the long feature by Hany Tamba. This task can get easier if the youth agree to get out of shadows and share their achievement with the rest to be able to value them. In vimeo, creating a group is among the easiest task, maybe it can be a start to have a library for artists and producers as well.

33 Days - ٣٣ يوم

a Still from 33 days

22 days have passed and the massacres in Gaza are still being committed in ways no human can understand. A mirroring event, 2 years earlier, Lebanon was pounded continuously, brutally, and in the most cruel ways, for 33 days. Mai Masri documented this period of Lebanon history. As in any similar atrocities, war is fought in more than one front, director Masri, in her documentary, focuses her camera on different fronts on how any ordinary Lebanese was living, keeping distance from direct fire line. Without any scripted narration, the documentary reveals itself as a slideshow of events lived by the people trapped in the conflict. One camera follows the work by a TV news producer and her fight to bring to report the war to citizens and being forced away from her home during all the 33 days period. Another persepective direct our attention to a theater director who had done a marvelous job in entertaining displaced kids. A third front emphasize the efforts done by the civilian community in Lebanon to bring relief aids to refugees. Noting that all those storylines are being shown in parallel, we end up concluding that the efforts described in the documentary are ingredients to a successful resistance movement which led to a merited victory.
For Lebanese, this award winning masterpiece will surely unveil some emotions, maybe make a tear or two drop, but will get us firmly attached to our dignity, our pride, our land, and unity. It should be aired as well on most TV stations, western or local to give the side of wars aside what the news reports bring.
Mai Masri is a Palestinian director, I am not sure whether she can produce a similar documentary about the ongoing war in Gaza without being present there. But the tragic events should be documented in the same way it have been done during the war in Lebanon, even if conditions are much more difficult.

Related posts: Under the bombs, Slingshot Hip hop, Salt of this sea

SlingShot Hip Hop - هيب هوب المقلاع

In the light of the tragic events that are shredding Gaza (which remind me to the latest infamous war against Lebanon in 2006 with ironically very similar circumstances), this post will be dedicated to the new award-winning documentary by Jackie Salloum: Slingshot Hip Hop.

Slingshot Hip Hop Trailer

Despite all the borders, walls, checkpoints, and the apartheid regime, this feature reveals the unity of the Palestinian population wherever they are. The movie is surprisingly amusing for a documentary, it reveals youth life and the continuing will to overturn the outcomes of the oppression imposed on occupied people. It highlights suavely different talents mainly in Hip Hop, that are blooming against the occupation and the indignity. The music they compose is enjoyable by youth, but also by elder people as some scenes indicates. That kind of culture is one way towards breaking the chain that imprisons bodies, but not minds of occupied people.
To resume, director Jackie Salloum redefines, and successfully corrects the image of the Arabs with respect to the vilification that floods screens of every westerner.
No one can ignore the big talent of Salloum, you can easily enjoy her studies about the western media vs. Arabian media by playing the videos below side by side; the first one emphasize the dehumanization of Arabs in the West medias, the other shows Arabs from their own eyes (mainly a successful montage from different Lebanese and Egyptian films).

Planet of the Arabs (up left), and Arabs a Go-go (lower right) by Jackie Salloum

I can only hope such movie reach a wide audience not only in the middle-east, but especially in Europe and USA.
Note that this is not the first post on a Palestinian movie, I would remind of another one discussing the great feature Salt of This Sea.

Une Chanson dans la tête - ميلودراما حبيبي

Trailer for Melodrama Habibi

Hani Tamba released this long fiction, his first one in France, a pity that it wasn't released earlier in Lebanon this crowded summer. My beliefs is that it would have compete well with the other American movies. In France, it might not be considered as general public movie, but the first days it was a hit I suppose. The movie made a great bi-lingual movie, although some lines may not seem as natural for Lebanese (an oracle which speaks almost exclusively in French!) which reveals the Lebanese openness to other cultures. Behind the story, the most highlighted theme that we may extract is the focus on the memory, and how weak are humans relying on it. This theme can be touched in the director's award winning short After Shave where we can find other common subjects. One of these, is his choice of the music composer, Khaled Mouzanar whose talent marked his wife's movie as well. Regarding the cast, I was excited with Julia Kassar's presence, it's a shame that her role was so short, even though her talent was shining in the little space she was given.
Even though the ending was a bit pessimistic for Lebanon future, in my opinion, this Tamba's first feature was a success, only missing its release in Lebanon.

In Memoriam ...

This week witnessed a big loss for the Lebanese artistic community. A great talent that contributed in defining lines of Arabic and Lebanese films would not be forgotten any time soon. Her marks will remain shining in the history of our culture.

Her best known works include "The Kite" which was honored with the silver Lion award in the Venice film festival.

Randa Chahal, Rest In Peace...