Each year in august, the « Festival du Film Libanais » shows the audience some of the best videos and short films from lebanese film-makers, eather living in Lebanon or abroad. Most of these films are shown for the very first time..

Our  program aims to show the diversity of works eather from the technical point of view or from the subject in itself. We display documentaries,  fictions, experimental videos and animation films.

Due to our very new cinema industry and the lack of official cultural policy, the lebanese production is rich in experimentations that help the artists to evoke theirconcerns as well as the  society they live in. It seems important to us to invite each year a foreign film-maker whose work has an echo in lebanese cinema. 

Wadih Safieddine

Videos selection
	Shawki Youssef, « Untitled with Jacques Derrida », (2005), 1’
	Akram Zaatari, « Images + Sounds : Teach me », (1996), 6’ By constructing new meaning out of recycled TV news footage, the filmmaker creates a thought-provoking statement against violence.
	Akram Zaatari « Le candidat  » (1996, Vidéo, 10')
	Jalal Toufic, « Saving Face », (2003), 9’ Removal of posters after the parliamentary campaign of 2000 in Lebanon. In this process, part of the faces on the posters appear under the faces of other candidates and intermingle.
	Amandine Brenas, « Auto », (2005), 4’ This video draws from TV records of the war. Images that were lost in our memories but that were used once again in order to inform about two assassinations : the one of lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri and french ambassador Louis Delamare. It is also a way to get back to history of our country to understand it better.
	Ziad Abillama « Why don’t you give up dying? » (2005), 7’ This video asks questions about our time showing the social and cultural context in Lebanon. With an aesthetic inspired from the journalistic reports, this film focuses on the myth of the martyre, on the innocence (or not) of the lebanese people, on culture as an adversary of this people.
	Ziad Antarand Casal Liotier« Mishwar » (2005), 26’ The mortal attempt against Hariri and recent problems with  safety in Lebanon remember us of the war. Hadi is looking for his lost brother while El King tells us his own vision of the war.
	Wael Noureddine « Ca sera beau… (from Beyrouth, with Love) » (2005), 31’ Beirut - or any other town at war with itself. Here conflicts are never settled, no wall is rebuilt. Heroin doses cost 5 US dollars. I call on some acquaintances and send a few postcards.
BREAK 10'
	Ziad Antar, « Wa » and « Tambourro », (2004), 4’ Short videos using "second hand music", experimenting the field of contemporary video clips.
	Akram Zaatari, « Red Chewing-gum », (2000), 10’ This erotic short is a love poem of sorts as one man recalls meeting another in an alley fifteen years earlier. There, alone in the alley together, they avidly watch a young street vendor chew his gum.
	Yasmine Al Massri, « In Between », (2005), 5’ To dance in the dark To see nothing To hear the noise of it To dance in the light To see everything To see it all Tell you get stuck on the outside Your skin is everywhere And who you are. The judgment has been pronounced Keep your eyes open To dance with shadows Between light and darkness Between breath and skin Between me and them Suddenly for all those reasons, I felt something in between the seconds...
	Yasmine Al Massri, « Boum… Tac », (2005), 5’ An experimental vidéo showing at the same time a ballerina having a casting and the story of a man and woman listening together at music without feeling the same thing.
	Lamia Joreige, « Replay (bis) », (2002), 10’ Replay is about break-ups. Is this story a real one or not ? These attempts end in a long look at  Beirut.
	Danielle Arbid, « Nous / Nihna », (2004/5), 13’ « My father used to go away. I shooted him in order to keep a testimony. I feared to loose any memory of him. »
	Nadim Tabet, « Martine and Alia », (2001), 27’ Summer, Lebanon, two girls meet each other...
Total running time: 167 min.