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.

While Teta Was Away...

I wrote the note below on Wednesday, November 3rd, 2011 at the American University Hospital in Beirut.


"Teta is probably lying down for the last time before she departs to another place. I am scared. Is it because I am writing a film about life and death? But I am not rejecting death in my film. I am simply trying to rejoice life. I miss my baby. At these moments I feel so weak and I so hope we could be together. Teta is sleeping. I wonder where she is now. What is she thinking and feeling. Several people have gathered in this CCU. Coronary Care Unit. Some are happy and conversing as if nothing is wrong. They are probably trying to distract themselves. Or I thought they thought someone was in a very bad situation but they found out they'll be ok. And now I am thinking the angel of death sometimes is too busy. He says keep this person in the hospital I will come for them later. And now he's gonna pass by. Maybe he's dressed as a hospital worker. Maybe as a doctor. I don't know. Maybe I can't see him because I am human and he is an angel. This is so bizarre."


Teta passed away on Thursday, November 4th, 2011 at the American University Hospital in Beirut.

Broken Sentences - 3

Monday, October 5, 2009 at 4:33pm

Attention: This note may use or refer to Arabic words or culture. Please take guard and stay alert.

Lina advised me to read a story called "Bus al Awadem" (Good People's Bus). And to find this bus, mommy and I had to search several libraries inside and outside Beirut.

On mom's search, she forgot the name of the story. Remembered only the "bus". Dad suggested "Bus Al Afandi"? But mom was sure it was not afandi. It was something else.

The bus was not there anyway.

I went down to Hamra and scanned the fancy and unfancy libraries in the crowded street.

On one shelf, I surveyed attentively some "religious" authors. Aboona, Mawlana, Al Ab, Al Doctor, Al Sayyed, Al Sheikh. I looked curiously at the titles. They were not books about Allah or Jesus or Buddha. They were not even about inner peace or outer peace or any kind of peace.

They were all about sex. Religion is not selling anymore, I thought. Sex is.

God Bless....

BREAK IN:


On August 1, I was selected RANDOMLY for the special security check in Dulles Airport, when leaving the United States of America.

BREAK OUT:


I finally found "Bus al Awadem". The last copy was resting in another fancy library in Hamra. It is now resting in my bag for an airplane read, hopefully tonight.

The woman at the counter asked me if there are still any "Awadem" around. I suggested she read the story to find out.

The novels written by Lebanese writers are mostly about the past. I am not the only person who writes about the war. It is a comforting and a non-comforting thought.

I promise myself always that my next screenplay won't be about war.

Beirut is a beautiful city. The new traffic lights cannot but call my attention. Like jewels they shine beneath trees and on secondary roads. Red and green and orange.

Today I leave Beirut for the umpteenth time. And tomorrow I come back.

Like a naughty kid, I kick it and humiliate it. And like a hungry kid I long for it. And like any other kid, I have to accept it.

Beirut gives me the life, Beirut destroys me. It gives me the passion, it teaches me to hate. It hates me and loathes me and spits me on the coasts of foreign cities in the sea of my dreams, then it pulls me back.

I once visited Turkey in the future. And loved it. I wanted to die in it. But Beirut calls, and like in any super orientalist fantasy says, "Even death here is more dramatic, you don't want a boring death".

Right. Nobody wants a boring death. I'll probably want to die in Beirut one day. Maybe one day, I'll even want to live in it. Maybe one day, I'll want to live in it every day. And maybe one day, I'll wish I died in it one day. Maybe one day, I'll even wish I died in it every day.

But maybe, maybe, and only maybe, one day I'll wish I lived in it every day.

Broken Sentences - 2

Tuesday, July 14, 2009 at 2:43am

Sometimes I run out of stuff to waste time on, so I decide to check the NEWS. Believe it or not. And today I discovered (I hope I figured that out right) that Lebanon still does not have a government. The parliamentary election results were announced on Monday, June 8th, 2009. That is more than one month ago.

FUN FACT: On the right side of my laptop screen an ad says: "Where to Pee in NYC".

Yesterday is everything that happened before I wake up tomorrow.
Yesterday, I was a little girl in Beirut with a very good handwriting. Teta once picked me from the balcony to keep me away from the glass during the bombing. As much as she would never remember a tiny detail like that; as much the more I will. 1986.
And yesterday, I was waiting to register for the first time in the long corridor of the Fine Arts bldg in LAU. I wrote my name down on a yellow paper hung on the door of Hala's office. There were few names before mine. One must have been for sure the name of Rouba Korfali. 1997.
Yesterday, I found myself living in a huge house alone in Qatar, acting like a movie star, trying to find myself somewhere in the hundreds of DVDs or hiding inside a guitar. 2005.
Yesterday I was here in Hollins, stepping on American soil for the first time, waiting to find out what is America. 2008.

I'm almost a year away from getting what I always wanted. A screenwriting degree. A dream will come true. THIS is America. Dreams can come true when you plan.

FUN FACT#2: I already know that I will be RANDOMLY selected for the special security check at Dulles Airport when am leaving USA on August 1st. THIS is also America.

This is not a blog entry. This is a Classified Ad. If you found HOME please post the directions.
No bullshit please. Home is not where the heart is.
Hearts have been upgraded to Credit Card colors.
Last I checked, home was where the money was.

RIDDLE: Now the money is gone. Where is home?

Broken Sentences - 1

Thursday, June 4, 2009 at 5:41pm

Is facebook, twitter, myspace, and social networking media shaping the way we think these days?
I find myself during the day lighting up the lamp in my head and telling myself, "This is a good status for Facebook some day". "This has to go on xyz". " I definitely MUST tweet this".

Ras Al Abed (yeah I know its a racist name but this is its name) and Fairouz, are the only things that can unite the Lebanese people. I suggest we utilize them both to restore the broken ties between people.

Election Season.
The expats are going to Lebanon - free tickets.
The people of Akkar and Baalbek (and other areas also) are going places inside Lebanon - free buses - free sandwiches - free laban ayran - free pepsi cans.
Meanwhile, my mind is going coocoo (for free of course), and the whole thing makes me think, please God fast forward the day of judgement. This farce has to stop.

Oh, wait a minute. I am re-thinking the above statement.
Those who don't go on these free "mashaweer", they do that out of what used to be called "principles" or a "Matter of conscience". These terms are now extinct, and you get laughed at if you can really spell them properly. Get lost Niam. Seriously. What year do you live in? duh.

I am still trying to find a reason for why did the Lebanese Civil War happen altogether. If anybody has a clue please let me know. If your answer is Israel or the Palestinians please say it without much elaboration. I now know the cliches.

Sometimes I think again of Naher El Bared. On these second thoughts, everything is blurred. Did this camp exist? What took me up there? Why did I fall in love with a doomed place? Maybe it vanished because I loved it. I should never ever love a person or a place or anything again. They often tend to disappear.

This woman, whose name I forgot, was overrun by a car in downtown Beirut. Her son and daughter disappeared during the war. They are probably dead, and -hopefully- buried somewhere. She had been staying downtown to call the attention of the authorities to find her children. I am not into politics at all, but sometimes I wonder why does none of our big mouthed courageous *** (insert correct word in brackets) politicians ever ask about her kids? And why do none of the free mashaweer people ever think of these mothers and fathers and kids before they board their free mashaweer vehicles?

When May delivered her baby, the women cried. All of them. I even cast a tear or two. But I saved them knowing I will shed them later at the right moment. The AUH is a very horrible place for me to be at. Even for a lovely occasion like witnessing the birth of my neice. But this time I was thinking about Mommy. IF the AUH for ME is a horrible place, how horrible can it be for Mom? Whoever knows knows and whoever doesn't doesn't. When May was taken away from us to the operating room, I thought; how does it feel when the child is taken away from the mother. And does DEATH flash in her eyes when her child is taken away? The child may not ever come out alive from this room.
How did it feel when I was taken in to that room when I was just a kid? And how did it feel when Bayan went in when she was an infant? And how did it feel when a child was gone forever in a room in that place before that?

Thank you!
I feel like I have a thank you syndrome and I want to thank...

So..
Thank you to my friends for being there when I need you..and even when I don't..
Thank you to my colleagues..for they trust my abilities enough to be working with me..
Thank you to Ziad. He first took me to Nahr El Bared when it still existed.. and it will always exist.
Thank you to Zizu. She restored my trust in friendship after I had long lost it.
Thank you to Hala. She threw me heads down as stage manager ten years ago.
Thank you to Lina. She taught me how to SCREAM at actors and actresses, and -most importantly & most needed- at her!
Thank you to my society. It is so boring it always pushes me to be different.
Thank you to Beirut. It is the only "being" that I can't define..that I can't love or hate..that I can't forget..
Thank you to the war. I know how ugly it is and I know I am not born to be part of it.

WATANI (My Country)

EXT. DOWNTOWN BEIRUT. DUSK - 1977

A big stray dog trolls on a very dusty street that has traces of shoes but not cars. Bushes grow out from sidewalks and cement on both sides of the street. The beast sniffs around some bushes and finds a dead body behind a bush. That keeps him busy.

One of the light poles on the sidewalk of the street is severely bent and it almost blocks the street. The building entrances on both sides of the street are so dusty. Bullet and shell holes decorate the walls of every single building.

Some low music from a radio transistor can be heard, and Lebanese Singer Fairouz singing “Watani”. The buildings seem alike because of the dirt which covers them. But some spots of yellow or pale pink still show from below the dust. Buildings stand weakly on both sides of the bushy deserted street.

New colorful small size posters of “Star Wars” decorate the entrances of several buildings.

One iron board sticks out from the first floor balcony of a building, and says “Fresh Baked Bread Daily”.

Most of the balconies are destroyed, have no handrails, or dangle down from the old traditional buildings. One balcony with a huge hole reveals a line of colorful laundry that sways gently with the breeze. Some yellow light is coming from inside the balcony. It is a lux light which reflects shadows of few people eating on the bullet decorated wall.

A big, old, pale poster of “Chinatown” consumes the whole side of a building. It also has lots of bullet and shell holes.

On the roof of one of the buildings a sniper lies down on his side, smoking a cigarette. His rifle lies close to him. To his left is a junkie radio transistor from which the music comes.

The old street stretches in the horizon to reveal the sea. Dusk engulfs the grey city.

Fairouz’s song plays:“You are the strong/You are the wealthy/You are the world/My country”

THE END

Blogging from the office today..

When I am conscious about my work, I wonder sometimes what other people I knew throughout my life are doing now. Childhood friends mostly. I always build a story for each one of them. Regardless of all the sorrows which memories may cause, they always make me smile.

But since the last assassination took place in Beirut I feel so estranged. Lost the sense of belonging. Even the memories mean nothing anymore. And all the songs we sing for Beirut and Lebanon and love and tolerance are not even worth the ink they were written with. Even those who sing them cannot understand, much less apply, what they mean.

Only songs of LOSS make sense. And this old Arabic song echoes in my heart, saying

"Mitgharrabeen i7na,
Tigree sineen wihna,
gar7 sineen...
Ma 7ad 2al 3anna,
khabar yfarra7na,
wa la 7ad gab minna,
kilma tirayya7na..."

Watching the news and seeing what is happening in the world makes it look like a big puzzle, with kids all around fighting for every piece. And eventually tearing the whole thing. And later blaming each other for what happened.
Nobody ever thinks they may have made a mistake. It is always others.

The ironic part is, although I am watching this fight happen over the puzzle; I am a piece in this puzzle. And I am being torn too.
I feel I am supposed to do something.
But it is during moments like this when people become aware of their weakness.