Friday, May 16, 2014
Transit Game Official Trailer (with English subtitles)
Official Trailer of a Short Film I co-produced with Idil Ibrahim & Habib Battah
Written, Directed & Produced by Anna Fahr
Executive Producers Abla Khoury & Lara Chekerdjian
Saturday, November 09, 2013
Twice Upon A Time - From Rouba Abou Zeid
rouba abouzeid: Twice Upon A Time: English My friend Niam Itani will be celebrating her birthday soon. Why is it relevant to this blog? Well it is not really. But her wi...
Saturday, November 02, 2013
Tuesday, April 09, 2013
Cinema in the New Lebanon
I am having a bad production day today, so I thought why not write about the best production times for Lebanon.
Lebanon is a country rich with talent and with stories. We have an excellent foundation for cinematic resources. We have beautiful and various location types: Mountains, beaches, forests, valleys, cities and villages, etc... We have many cinema and audiovisual programs at universities and institutes, that graduate hundreds of students every year and throw them into the market.
Yet when it comes to film production, we have huge trouble financing films of world quality. Even well known talents like Nadine Labaki and Ziad Doueiri have to fill out funding applications from Arab and Foreign film funds. This post is not to complain about funding applications but rather to complain about the lack of financing from our Ministry of Culture. Culture is one thing we might still have a chance with in our Lebanon.
Last I visited the Ministry of Culture in an old building that needs a grant itself, the employees informed us that the ministry provides a maximum amount of 8 Million Lebanese Liras (5,300 USD) for feature films.
In the new Lebanon, the ministry of culture will provide grants of up to 200,000 USD per feature film. It will finance five films every year and will not grant the same filmmaker money two years in a row. It will encourage Arab and Foreign countries to come co-produce films in/with Lebanese producers. Lebanese films will take 2 to 3 years to get made instead of the 5 to 7 years it now takes each of them to be made.
In the new Lebanon, the ministry of culture will also protect cinema artists to tell whatever stories they want to tell, in total freedom. The ministry will realize that art is necessary for society's evolution, not for political propaganda purposes. And in that new Lebanon, there will be a Lebanese film in Cannes and Berlin and Venice every year.
In the new Lebanon, the Lebanese people will flock to movie theaters to watch stories about their own society, not about other societies in other continents only. Through watching these stories, the Lebanese people will ask themselves questions, will try to find answers, will laugh and will cry, and will realize that Lebanon matters; that there is hope for a country when it has artists with beautiful and colorful spirits who actually respect the audience and treat its members as smart human beings; artists who want to touch their hearts and minds and tell them powerful stories that need to be told to the world.
Lebanon is a country rich with talent and with stories. We have an excellent foundation for cinematic resources. We have beautiful and various location types: Mountains, beaches, forests, valleys, cities and villages, etc... We have many cinema and audiovisual programs at universities and institutes, that graduate hundreds of students every year and throw them into the market.
Yet when it comes to film production, we have huge trouble financing films of world quality. Even well known talents like Nadine Labaki and Ziad Doueiri have to fill out funding applications from Arab and Foreign film funds. This post is not to complain about funding applications but rather to complain about the lack of financing from our Ministry of Culture. Culture is one thing we might still have a chance with in our Lebanon.
Last I visited the Ministry of Culture in an old building that needs a grant itself, the employees informed us that the ministry provides a maximum amount of 8 Million Lebanese Liras (5,300 USD) for feature films.
In the new Lebanon, the ministry of culture will provide grants of up to 200,000 USD per feature film. It will finance five films every year and will not grant the same filmmaker money two years in a row. It will encourage Arab and Foreign countries to come co-produce films in/with Lebanese producers. Lebanese films will take 2 to 3 years to get made instead of the 5 to 7 years it now takes each of them to be made.
In the new Lebanon, the ministry of culture will also protect cinema artists to tell whatever stories they want to tell, in total freedom. The ministry will realize that art is necessary for society's evolution, not for political propaganda purposes. And in that new Lebanon, there will be a Lebanese film in Cannes and Berlin and Venice every year.
In the new Lebanon, the Lebanese people will flock to movie theaters to watch stories about their own society, not about other societies in other continents only. Through watching these stories, the Lebanese people will ask themselves questions, will try to find answers, will laugh and will cry, and will realize that Lebanon matters; that there is hope for a country when it has artists with beautiful and colorful spirits who actually respect the audience and treat its members as smart human beings; artists who want to touch their hearts and minds and tell them powerful stories that need to be told to the world.
Monday, December 10, 2012
Reblogged: "Sick of Beirut: Me, Beirut and suffocation"
This is a poem I am reblogging from sickofbeirut.blogspot.com
Sick of Beirut: Me, Beirut and suffocation: I can hear my watch ticking next to me I can hear the music I am playing I can hear the AC blowing fresh air in my r...
Sick of Beirut: Me, Beirut and suffocation: I can hear my watch ticking next to me I can hear the music I am playing I can hear the AC blowing fresh air in my r...
Thursday, November 01, 2012
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Wellywood Woman: Niam Itani (1) - Before the Venice Film Festival
Wellywood Woman: Niam Itani (1) - Before the Venice Film Festival: Niam Itani Niam Itani (also Etany) is the only woman director among the ten finalists in YouTube’s short film competition, Your Film Fes...
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