TIFF 2012

The Attack by Ziad Doueiri

TIFF selection this year will include some very interesting entries from Lebanese and Arab Filmmakers. Among the notable titles, we may mention the third movie by the prominent director Ziad Doueiri (check the trailer above), and the documentary by the couple Jreige and Hadjithomas about the scientific ambitions of Lebanese researchers in pre-war era. Other interesting Arabic films to be screened during the festival are "When I Saw You" the second feature by Anne-Marie Jacir (director of "Salt of this sea") and "Zabana" by Saïd Ould-Khelifa. We hope one of these movies will enjoy the same glory as "Where do we go now?".

The Lebanese Rocket Society by Jreige and HadjiThomas

Update: The distributors decided to take down "the attack" trailer preventing curious viewers to enjoy few scenes from the upcoming movie. The provided rationale is that "[the trailer] says too much about the story and shouldn't be revealed to the public". Instead of suggesting an accompanying 'spoiler alert' tag to the video, thus, they ended up penalizing fans by removing the video.

West Beirut - بيروت الغربية

Trailer for West Beirut

Released in 1998, this film was a hit in Lebanon. This was one of the very first films to be produced after the 1975-1990 civil war. Ziad Doueiri the director managed with success to present a movie with great style. You might think that there is some Quentin Tarantino's style, you should not be surprised since Ziad Doueiri was first assistant camera for Pulp Fiction. But he sure made his own style.
The movie was presented during the Directors Fortnight during the Cannes Film Festival 1998 and got some award there. The film got as well the International Critics' Award in Toronto International Film Festival 1998 apart other awards. This alone wont prove that this film is great. All you should do is to watch it yourself and see what I mean.
I simply loved the film, the storyline was great : Teens life during the war. They don't care about religion, and the way they see solution to the problems might be the right solution ... The way he used humor, although the theme was war, touched me: In fact this way the film was showing how Lebanese overcome problems using humor. I loved all actors performance: the beatiful Rola Al Amin (May), Mohamad Chamas (Omar) and all the rest. But I appreciated the most Carmen Lebbos who shows great acting skills in all means. I only question Rami Doueiri's acting (the brother of the director), he wasn't able to make me feel that he's not acting, it wasn't that bad but I felt something was wrong, but I'm not sure about that neither, maybe the director wanted to give this teenager this kind of character. Even though the overall result was more than satisfying. This film is a must see movie for all lebanese.