Bullets Gently Dancing Over My Head 100518.mov

Video Clips Shine At Lebanese Film Festival

Saturday was a celebration of young Lebanese talent at Sofil Achrafieh.

Almost anybody who was remotely related to film was holed up in an unbearably hot Sofil theater. Many stood standing up. Some sat in strategic places on the slanting floor. Periodically, the crowd would cheer when the camera froze for a split second on a face on the screen freezing it for eternity.

The latest darling of Lebanese college fans Mashrou Layla had several video clips showing one of which was "Raksit Layla" directed by Jad Sarout, Chadi Aoun, and Yasmine Sarout.


Mashrou Layla mix jazz with Arabic lyrics that, at times, even outdo the king of unconvential slang in Lebanese song, Ziad Rahbani. The group consists of college students (the band's name means Plan of an overnight).

Two of the most innovative of the clips were directed by Pedros Temizian who made his debut with the classic "Prelude to an Abyss" by underground Lebanese group The Replacements.

The first clip by Temizian, Bullets Gently Dancing Over My Head was a clip that perfectly captured the manic mood of a partying Beirut of the third millenium.The clip had been first shown at the Lebanese Film Festival in 2009.

Temizian's second clip was Fog El Nakhel by Zeid Hamdan sung by Hiba Kawass.The song featured the singer asleep in bed next to her husband with her baby peacefully sleeping on his father's chest.

The most political clip was General Suleiman, a Lebanese "Smells Like Teen Spirit" anthem for disenchanted Lebanese youth who tell politicians in the video to go home.

General Suleiman is directed By Gigi Rocatti who studied at London Film School. His Film project Chloe Travels opened doors for him at Universal Studios. Rocatti has recently filmed Road to Kabul, a documentary shot in Afghanistan and is currently working on his first feature film entitled , Beirut, I Love You.

How Nada goes to the Lebanese Film Festival with her cousin Joyce and they both walk out of a porn movie part I

It was phenomenally hot yesterday. When it's very hot, I usually get depressed. And when I get depressed, I flee the house.

This time I decided to go the Lebanese film festival even though it's not one of my favorites. I took my cousin Joyce with me. I waited for her to get dressed. Joyce always has to dress up whenever we go out. She dresses up even when she's going to the beach.

We entered the movie theater to find there was something by an American about Twitter playing. It looked very interesting.The kind of film that appealed to my rebellious,frustrated visual artist side.

I felt I had stepped into Hell. I know this is a cliche, so I'm going to say it again. I felt I had stepped into Hell. But leaving just because there was no AC inside was not very cool.

I had to step over the bodies lying down on the floor. Die-hards sat on the
floor if the seats were taken and the room was packed. I sat on the floor feeling very cool. I was a rebel artist so in love with the movie screen I would sit on the floor to watch a movie.In the heat. I admired my coolness for one whole minute before I concentrated on the screen.

Usually the shorts are quite predictable. Of course an American is going to do something about twitter or facebook and it's going to look really avant-garde whatever that means. A Lebanese inevitably will include a scene with
a bunch of women drinking Turkish coffee. But I was not prepared for what was coming up.

It started with a woman masturbating with a kleshinkoff. I should have seen what was coming.

Two naked bodies, one extremely overweight rolled around on the screen.
The woman kept holding the man's face moving
it left and right then she'd tell him to stick out his tongue while repeating something that reminded me of our high school classes when we studied L'avare.

There was full frontal nudity --Hs & Hrs.

Then I did a very uncool thing for a die-hard festival fan . I said to hell with this and stormed out of the theater. Then Joyce did a very uncool thing for a die-hard festival fan. She complained to the people selling tickets outside about the Zbeleh (garbage) being shown on screen inside. Then I felt so euphoric I wanted to clap and I also had an urge to vomit. The last time I felt sick like that was when I saw the Abu Ghreib photos.The last time I had felt sick by a movie was when I watched Lars Von Trier's Breaking The Waves. I made a mental note to tell the CIA about the possibility of using the movie by "the French pervert" as Joyce and I had dubbed him to torture Iraqui prisoners.