Every year, many movies are subject to censorship by Lebanese authorities. Because of this practice of the Lebanese authorities, The Beirut International Film Festival is organizing a festival of banned films, where 5 films will be showing.
The festival will start on June 22nd and end on June 26th. During this festival, movies that were banned by the Lebanese authorities will be projected. The administration of the BIFF have specified that the general security with the support of the Ministry of Interior have allowed the projection of the 5 films that have been banned in 2009 and 2010. Two of the five films will be showing at Planete Abraj movies theaters between 8:00 PM and 10:00 PM every night during festival days.
Among the films that will be projected , “Chou Sar?” for Lebanese Director Degaulle Eid. The director received the Jury’s Special award at the BIFF 2010, but was not shown to the public because the censorship. The jury of the festival considered that the film used the best cinematographic approach for a horrible personal story to become a part of the collective history of Lebanon.
On December 9, 1980, DeGaulle Eid’s parents, youngest sister and eleven other members of his family were gunned down in Edbel, Northern Lebanon. After quitting Lebanon for France 18 years ago, Eid now lives with his own family in Corsica. Since leaving Lebanon, Eid has remained traumatized by the massacre. Finally, he travels back to his homeland, where a 1993 amnesty agreement means that perpetrators of civil war-era atrocities are immune from retribution. Discovering his former neighbors, who participated in his family’s slaying are still living in the area, Eid is faced with a hideous reality.
Green Days (Ruzhaye Sabz) by Iranian director Hana Makhmalbaf. in 2010 the Lebanese authorities ordered the postponing of the projection of the movie because it coincided with the visit of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Lebanon.
The fictional documentary tells the story of a young girl, Aya, who goes to meet the protestants that participated in the manifestations that took place in Iran after the controversial reelection of M. Ahmadinejad en June 2009.
Italian Director Paolo Benvenutti will also be present at the festival with his films Gostanza Da Libbiano and Confortorio. In Gostanza Da Libbiano, where the events take place at the end of the 16th century at San Martino in Tuscany, Lucia Poli is Gostanza Da Libbiano, an old peasant who has always been practicing the art of healing. But her practices are strange which alerts the cleric authorities. She is arrested and charged with witchcraft. Where as Confortorio talks about the story of two young Jews sentenced to death for theft and who will be forced to convert to Catholicism.
Also showing, Le Chant Des Mariees a film by director Karin Albou who won the “Aleph” award for middle east best film during the 9th BIFF in spite the decision of the Lebanese authorities to ban the projection of the movie and to censor it. The vents of the movie take place in 1942 Tunisia.
Nour and Mariam , 16 years, are childhood friends. They share the same home in a p0or neighborhood where Jews and Muslims live in harmony. Each desires living the others life, While Nour regrets not going to school like her friend, Myriam is dreaming about love. She envies the engagement of her friend Nour with her cousin Khaled, a prince charming who embodies the fantasies of the young girls.
