Rather than a traditional lecture, this will be an an introduction of films in the presence of their authors, the curator of the festival « Né à Beyrouth » as well as a movie critic.

Wadih Safieddine will introduce the selected films of « Né à Beyrouth » together with Philippe Azoury, showing various aspects of making films at the present time in Lebanon.

Wadih Safieddine

Wadih Safieddine was born in Beirut in 1970 and has lived in France from 1975 to 1994. As a self made man, he has gained a great knowledge of poetry, theater, cinema and music in Paris before coming back to settle in his native country.

He has worked as a journalist, an editor in advertising, a music band manager and a TV animator.

Since 2002, he is the partner of Pierre Sarraf and Nadim Tabet to organize the Festival of Lebanese Films « Né à Beyrouth » which was launched in 2001, and he made with them along with filmmaker Danielle Arbid a film company.

Since then, Wadih works as a film-producer both in cinema and TV.

Philippe Azoury

Philippe Azoury is a journalist and movie  critic for the french newspaper “Libération”. He has published several books, among them  : “Fantomas” (Editions du Centre Pompidou, 2002) and “Cocteau et le cinéma” (Cahiers du cinéma, 2003). he also works for the french « Cinémathèque » to enlarge its collections.