July 2022
Marwa Arsanios, Ahmad Ghossein, Ghassan Halwani
This selection of films draws from ArteEast’s ArteArchive to explore the notion of absence–that which is erased, missing or forgotten–as a central theme in the works of Lebanese filmmakers Marwa Arsanios, Ahmad Ghossein, and Ghassan Halwani Both Marwa Arsanios and Ghassan Halwani use animation as a means to render that which is invisible visible, while Halwani also uses…
June 2022
Annemarie, Enas I. Al-Muthaffar, Nahed Awwad, Ayreen Anastas, Larissa Sansour
The Second Intifada heralded a particularly fresh, urgent and experimental approach to filmmaking, in tune with the uprisings to which they contributed. Working at a distance from both the main political organizations and, often, the aesthetic insistences of Global Northern art cinema funding, filmmakers took advantage of accessible technologies to forge new notions of freedom. The prolific…
April 2022
Yto Barrada, Malak Helmy, Lara Baladi, Marianne Fahmy, Maha Maamoun, Setareh Shahbazi
Monuments & Flowers Curated by Regine Basha Monuments & Flowers brings together a selection of seminal video work by women artists culled from the archives of ArteEast with the work of contemporary voices including Yto Barrada, Lara Baladi, Marianne Fahmy, Malak Helmy Maha Maamoun and Setareh Shahbazi with Mirene Arsanios. How do we reflect upon…
March 2022
Mohamed Soueid
Mohamed Soueid came of age in the Beirut of the early 1970s, when over forty movie theaters were operating in the Lebanese capital, offering lovers of cinema something possibly unique in terms of geo-artistic variety. Not only could Lebanese moviegoers watch the latest European and American films, both arthouse and commercial, but thanks to very…
February 2022
Assia Djebar
South West Asia and North Africa, there are historical records of women’s cinema since the 1920s. However, a lack of state funding for archival projects, as well as factors such as conflict and war, mean that we often watch these films through reading about them. The films themselves are inaccessible, or more often damaged or…
November 2021
Mona Benyamin, Akram Zaatari, Emily Jacir
Ib’atli Gawab / Signed, Sealed, Delivered: On longing and political resistance through epistolary forms in four essay-films. Inspired by two love songs—Sabah Fakhri’s Ib’atli Gawab (Arabic for “send an answer my way”) and Stevie Wonder’s Signed, Sealed, Delivered—this program explores the affective and political potential of letter-writing and other epistolary forms through four films by Mona Benyamin, Emily…
October 2021
Moumen Smihi, Mohammad Malas
RADICAL MODERNISMS: RETRACING ARAB AND NORTH AFRICAN FILM HISTORIES is a two-part program curated by Peter Limbrick, Professor of Film and Digital Media at UC Santa Cruz and author of Arab Modernism as World Cinema: The Films of Moumen Smihi. This program addresses aesthetic and cultural experiments that emerged in Arab and North African cinema from the 1960s, experiments…
, 2000
, 70 min
Synopsis: In 1975, a group of young Lebanese men joined the Palestinian organization “Fateh”. Known as the “Student Brigade”, they participated in the Lebanese Civil War. Some of them were killed, others left the country. Following the Israeli invasion in 1982, Palestinian armed forces left Lebanon. The “Student Brigade” dissoluted and the young Lebanese fighters have…
September 2021
Mohamed Soueid, Walid Raad, Jayce Salloum
RECONSTRUCTING HISTORIES examines the role of the documentary in representing the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990) through the experimental works of three important Lebanese post-war artists/filmmakers: Walid Raad, Jayce Salloum, and Mohamad Soueid. The Lebanese Civil War officially ended after the 1989 Taif Accord, granting amnesty to those who committed war crimes, allowing these same figures to…
Wael Noureddine
, 2006
, 35 min
July Trip synopsis: Beirut, July 2006. The Israeli bombings strike the city. While Beirut is still on fire, the filmmaker starts a journey across his natal land. The film is not a documentary – although the images are burning real – but an essay. Using two complementary techniques, the 16 mm film and HDV, the artist…
