Lebanese Film Festival

The mission of the Lebanese Film Festival involves two aspects: promoting Lebanese cinema in Lebanon and abroad and encourage the Lebanese filmmaking industry.
The Lebanese Film Festival, which is organized by..né.à Beyrouth is an annual cinematographic rendezvous (the event's sixth edition is taking place in 2006), which enables all Lebanese directors to screen their films and meet with the public.
In organizing this rendezvous, our first objective is to explore Lebanon's memory through its cinematographic memory and to share the results of our search with the largest possible number of people. The second objective is about discovery since in our quest for quality, we are interested in all movies, whatever their subject, method of treatment, format or media used. We are interested in films that reveal their authors' search for a proper cinematographic language. Our third objective has a social character: change mentalities and raise people's awareness through cinema.
The organization of this annual Lebanese event, a cinematic rendezvous that is independent, open, experimental, and free of charge, takes place within a difficult context and we will only mention here the major difficulties identified to date. Needless to say, the absence of a movie industry in Lebanon is a sad reality and it's only too true that a country without cinema means a country without identity and a people without memory. Moreover, cinema is also one of the best means to spread culture; it is a tool of creativity and one of the most complete means of expression. Thus, we have much to do if we decide to help improve the cinematographic situation in Lebanon.
We have identified the following shortfalls:

Collective memory
In our quest for identity, we are trying to understand, through time, through history, the history of our cinema and all of the small stories that unfold in our lives, what has really happened to this country, which is ours. We want to understand in order to move forward. But to begin with, most of the work on memory still needs to be done through the restoration and conservation of the archives of the National Film Library.

Access to films
Lebanon suffers from a lack of cinematic culture and thus from a critical spirit, mainly because most of the films that are offered to audiences by distributors are commercial hits that the public "consumes" by default.

Teaching
The audiovisual course programs offered by Lebanese universities are lengthy and often costly and do not offer students any real specialization in the end. Thus, the emergence of new talent remains the result of individual initiatives. To remedy this problem, we believe that specialized teaching by qualified instructors is a top priority.

Cinematographic infrastructures
As we have mentioned, there is a real institutional gap when it comes to the development, production and distribution of cinematographic work. We lack true production companies and the Ministry of Culture hardly participates in financing filmmaking. However, the various concerned players should understand the stakes and the actual economic benefits of a healthy cinematographic industry. But directors search elsewhere in order to finance their movies, which is frustrating and complicated.

The evolution of mentalities
There is much we must do in Lebanon to reach the degree of freedom of expression that would enable each person to define his/her real identity. The first step toward progress concerns censorship. When, through "a miracle," Lebanese films can be edited abroad, there is a strong chance they'll be cut to remove all aspects of sensuality or sexuality, verbal or physical violence, religious or political positions - upon their airing in Lebanon, while we can have access to everything through cable TV or the Internet.