Though it is too early to say, December 2024 is curiously coming out to be a turning point in the legacies and perceptions of ‘arthouse’ films in Lebanon. After years of momentum, mostly through independent cinemas such as Cinema Royal and independent organizations such as Nadi Lekol El Nas (more on them later), independent cinema made a big splash with the announcement of the (re)opening of Metropolis Cinema.
Metropolis Cinema had its historical home in a theatre-turned-cinema in a basement in Hamra, one of Beirut’s many cultural hubs. Launching in 11 July 2006, only one day later, Metropolis would quickly have to adapt to the sudden onslaught of Israeli violence that would impact the entire country, with an emphasis on South Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut. The cinema swiftly became a shelter for the displaced, and would use its facilities to screen movies for terrified children. A year after the war ended, the cinema relaunched its operations, and moved out of Hamra to one of Beirut’s other cultural hubs, Ashrafieh. There, it would find a home in the Empire-Sofil cinema, and would expand its activities to connect with schools all across Lebanon. However, in January 2020, only a few months after the 2019 Thawra (uprising), Empire-Sofil shut its doors permanently, leaving Metropolis without a home. In that time, Metropolis had been restructuring and rebuilding, and in December 2024, under the pouring rain and in the wake of the 2024 Lebanese-Israeli war, Metropolis re-opened its doors to a shaken, damaged, and crumbling Lebanon, putting directly into question the role of film and art at a time in which every facet of Lebanese identity is under attack both externally from zionists and internally from corrupt and negligent governments.
In August 4, 2020, a port explosion would shatter Lebanon’s streets, stopping the heartbeat of the country, and with it, the beating heart of the 2019-2020 series of protests. In August 3, 2020, pre-production for Costa Brava, Lebanon (Mounia Akl, 2021) began, with production planned for October 3, 2020. Dancing on the Edge of a Volcano (Cyril Aris, 2023) details the crew’s attempts at making a movie in the eve of one of the world’s largest non-nuclear explosions, which occurred in the midst of one of the world’s worst economic crises. Many times throughout the documentary, the crew for Costa Brava, Lebanon debate if it’s even worth commencing with production after the tragic port explosion, they deal with things such as electricity cuts, money transfer delays due to lack of money in the banks, lack of gas for cars and equipment, lack of internet, and lack of meaningful means of communication with one another. In many ways, Costa Brava, Lebanon follows a similar story to Metropolis Cinema. Both the film and the cinema had begun operation just a day before a major tragedy or war. Both the film and the cinema were forced to cease production due to external conditions they couldn’t possibly account for. Yet, both the film and the cinema persevere in realizing their vision. In this way, they both put directly into question the role of art in times of struggle and turbulence. Why did Mounia Akl and her team believe so strongly in the film that they fought against all odds to get it done? Why did Metropolis Cinema jump from home to home in order to keep exhibiting independent movies? What do both of these things tell us about art and its role in cultivating a community at a time in which every facet of one’s identity is under attack?
I was sitting in a producing class a couple nights ago and the professor, a Hollywood veteran, was telling us about how in the US, movies are seen more as a commercial product whereas in other parts of the world, movies are seen more as art. I reflected on how Lebanese movies are seen in Lebanon, and had a hard time believing that my government would support anything local. For context, in an average commercial cinema plaza, 9 of the 12 screens are allocated to a Hollywood film, 1 is typically allocated for a French film, and the remaining two are split between Lebanon, Egypt, and the UAE. In her book Lebanese Cinema: Imagining the Civil War and Beyond, author Lina Khatib writes that the Lebanese filmmaker isn’t expected to make a movie, but they are expected to birth an industry, and the movies they do make are rarely solely a Lebanese production relying on Lebanese financiers, but that filmmakers often have to pilgrim across Southwest Asia, North Africa, and Europe to secure proper funding. It is already a miracle to get a movie done in Hollywood, but to get it done when quite simply, there is no institutional support, no popular demand, and no resources is nothing short of a faraway dream.
Yet, Lebanese filmmakers, as do filmmakers in many parts of the world, persevere. I think of filmmakers such as Georges Nasr, who actually studied filmmaking in UCLA before coming back to Lebanon and making the seminal Ila Ayn? (1957), the first Lebanese film to be selected in the Cannes Film Festival. Nasr would go on to make only one other Lebanese movie that is now lost to time, before retiring and teaching filmmaking full-time. I think of filmmakers such as Maroun Baghdadi, Jocelyne Saab, Mai Masri (who is actually Palestinian!), and Heiny Srour, filmmakers from the Civil War generation, who each used filmmaking as a political and ideological tool during a time in which the Lebanese identity was being existentially ripped and threaded anew. Filmmaking, for them, and for many filmmakers in my parents’ generation and my own generation, is not only a source of entertainment, but is a part of a filmic dogma, in which visual tools and languages are used to express the unspoken and taboo trauma lingering from the civil war days as it bleeds into the modern fabrics of contemporary life.
Though questions surrounding the Lebanese identity is not new in Lebanese cinema, with Ila Ayn? depicting the dilemma of staying in a crumbling country or immigrating for a more secure future, these questions begin to flourish during the Civil War generation. Hamasat (‘Whispers’, Maroun Baghdadi, 1980) is a documentary that follows Lebanese poet Nadia Tueni as she ventures across war-torn Lebanon. The documentary’s subjects are not just its people, but the dilapidated buildings that haunt the screen from the edge of the frame. Tueni speaks with people from all walks of life, from photographers to businessmen to factory workers. The sentiment is similar with each person, that Lebanon is being torn apart, that the war is pointless, and that Lebanon used to be beautiful. Her subjects, much like the still-standing dilapidated buildings, represent a golden past that exists no more than a visage. Curiously, Baghdadi ends the documentary with Tueni watching college students performing in a band in a university concert. He ends the documentaries with still frames on close-ups of the smiling students, representing an endless optimism for the future of not just the country, but of art in the country.
Baghdadi’s ending amplifies what I believe lies at the ideological battle most Lebanese filmmakers find themselves in. In a dilemma between the impracticality of becoming a filmmaker, and a Lebanese filmmaker at that, and the unlimited belief in the power of art, optimism is the crux of many of these works. Even if the narratives don’t necessarily reflect that belief, in the case of films such as Mshaqlab (‘Disorder’, Lucien Bourjeily, Bane Fakih, Wissam Charaf, and Areej Mahmoud, 2024), a nihilist anthology on Lebanese culture and society, the very practice of coming together to make a movie is in it of itself an ideological battle against the economic, social and colonialist oppressions Lebanese people feel at many turns.
This optimism is not only reflected in the act of filmmaking, but more importantly, in the act of exhibiting and preserving films. Lebanese independent cinema has found its home in Metropolis Cinema, which offers a wide range of programs and festivals that support independent Lebanese filmmakers. At the root of this practice is the optimism in Lebanese cinema, an optimism that faces off against the improbability that comes as a result of socioeconomics and colonialism. Metropolis Cinema isn’t the only initiative dedicated to supporting Lebanese filmmakers. Nadi Lekol El Nas is a music and movie organization with the explicit purpose of restoring, archiving, and distributing movies and music from across SWANA, with an emphasis on the pre-2000s. The organization has interviewed film historians and filmmakers from across the region, and has initiated and participated in film festivals all around the world. They hold one of the largest archives of actual film in the country, and provide the movies and music they recover for free viewing from the public. Similar initiatives, such as Tiro Initiative for the Arts, has restored old historic cinemas all across Lebanon, from the northern city of Tripoli to the southern city of Sour, and transformed them into functioning theaters and cinemas, offering a wide range of programs such as dabke performances and film festivals. These initiatives further the optimism and self-evaluation found in Lebanese cinema, constantly looking and restoring the past and integrating it into the everyday conversation that much of the country badly needs to partake in. In this way, film, and art in fact, takes a different role during times of crisis, being less about the art themselves and more about the national dialogue of reconciliation, rediscovery, and re-historicization at an attempt to remember that which is purposely forgot.
Maybe the Lebanese government doesn’t see film as art, and maybe even much of the Lebanese population does not have the luxury to see film as art either, but it is clear that film, and art as a whole, is an integral part of the fabrics of the country. At a time in which there is very little to be optimistic about, the very making of art embodies a radical optimism, allowing the country to nationally assert its continued existence against perseverant threat. This, of course, is not only limited to Lebanon. So much of this optimism is shared across much of the Global South, and especially in countries such as Palestine. At its heart, these initiatives and efforts are important to talk about because they represent something very special about art – the joy of making art. The joy of being able to be an artist. The joy of becoming joyous because of art. The joy of having art not as an escape, but as a direct ideological recourse to a discussion other institutions speak for you. They are stories of perseverance, in which people come together for the picture. Art becomes community. It becomes a way of finding similarities with our fellows. It becomes the connective tissue that wants to connect. Seeing artists make art in the worst of conditions inspires making more art in spite of the conditions. It is a ripple effect that truly gives me hope in a country that really doesn’t inspire much. It is the root of community and the base of radical optimism whose foundation is love.