Going to a festival is always an adventure, and as the very word “festival” suggests, it is a pleasant one. Yet a month prior to the Beirut International Women Film Festival, I lost my sleep, and instead of the usual anticipation filled with curiosity, I took a ride on an emotional rollercoaster of fears and doubts.
On March 27, I received a message from the artistic director and founder of BIWFF Sam Lahoud inviting me to sit on the International feature documentary competition jury, and I gladly accepted the invitation. The next day, Israel broke a ceasefire and for the first time in months, Beirut was targeted, with destructions and casualties reported in the media. The Israeli military said it had hit a drone storage unit used by Hezbollah, after issuing an evacuation warning that sparked chaos. “There’s panic. There are two schools nearby filled with kids. People are screaming left and right, people are crying,” were the quotes of locals on various websites.
Here I have to step back and refer to my own, first-hand experience of war. Coming from Donbas, the Eastern part of Ukraine, I faced war for the first time 11 years ago. In 2022, when the full-scale war broke out, I was in Donbas again, location scouting for my debut feature documentary. When the bombing of Kramatorsk started, I had to evacuate to the EU with no documents, no money, and no personal belongings and start from scratch; in the early days of my refugee experience, Cinema Femme got in touch with me and featured my story.
For 11 years now, destruction and death in my life have walked hand in hand with the daily routine of a filmmaker: films, festivals, travels, adventures, discoveries . . . War became a background for it, a connecting tissue that gives life an additional dimension, making me feel both its fragility and beauty only too sharp and never romanticize any reason for a battle. Thus, when I saw the news from Beirut, going to the festival was not a subject to discuss: It would be absurd to escape death in Ukraine and run towards it in Lebanon, wouldn’t it? I was about to text the festival organizers, but before I did, they forwarded screeners for the competition films, and I couldn’t help but have a look. That’s when the rollercoaster kicked off.
The competition was fantastic! Being a vice president of the International Federation of Film Critics, a member of a few award committees (including Golden Globes), and a programmer myself, I watch an enormous number of films and attend many film festivals. Yet rarely in this overwhelming amount of content did I find something as coherent, simple, and powerful as the programming of the 8th Beirut International Women Film Festival.
Nine feature international documentaries grasped my attention from the first frame and didn’t let go until now, as I’m writing these lines in my hotel room with the incessant noise of Beirut in the background.
I am writing in the designer-crafted personalized notebook with a pen with my name engraved on it: one of the welcome gifts from the festival. I am doing so also because the electricity here is in and out, and I don’t want to risk my laptop; besides, the internet is not working either, leaving enough space to reflect upon the month full of doubts that eventually brought me to the Lebanese capital.
How, despite the initial shock from the news, did I arrive at this decision? First, the strong film selection made me eager to meet the programming team. Second, I was thinking about my first meeting with Sam Lahoud (which happened in 2022 at the Flying Broom International Women Film Festival in Ankara). Back then, Sam enthusiastically told me about his home country and multiple initiatives he and his colleagues launched there despite instability, complicated political, economic and religious context, and lack of financing. Among others, the Beirut Film Society organizes summer camp and film festival Cinema for Peace. It promotes cinema as a vital tool for peace-building and conflict transformation by providing international youth with the needed skills to be harbingers of a new cinema of intercultural dialogue. CFP accepts films that evolve around the topics of Human Reconciliation, Dialogue, Environment, Human Rights, Peace, and Acceptance.
Last but not least, for the past month I was actively scouting the web for news from Lebanon in all languages I speak (4+5th in progress), and encountered nothing but reports on war, devastation, and political turmoil. Yet as communication with the festival gave me a totally different vibe, I remembered how desperate I felt about my native Donbas being shown only in the context of war, though I knew how many significant things were happening there, how many cultural initiatives came unnoticed, buried under the bloodlust headlines. At the beginning of a full-scale war, I pleaded international filmmakers’ community to not equalize Ukraine and war (a request, alas, unheeded). I was asking myself: Could it be the case with Lebanon, too, that only clickbait headlines make it to the international press, and not news about culture, grassroots civil effort, or peace-making initiatives? For one, with global powers like Israel and Iran pulling Lebanon in different directions, who would want to cover a women’s film festival?
As a film journalist, I travelled to enough destinations to know for sure how the reality could differ from what we see and hear in our echo chambers. As a refugee myself, I know only too well how media can marginalize certain areas and shape the global attitude by mass-forcing destructive narratives. That’s why I always prefer to come and see with my own eyes; some of such film-related travels I shared with Cinema Femme (see my reports from Bangladesh and Iraq).
On each such journey, not turning a blind eye to the existing issues of the regions, I always found myself surrounded by the nurturing care of dedicated people in love with film, who believed in the power of storytelling and worked tirelessly on fighting ignorance deliberately imposed by the global forces with the arms of dialogue through the screen. In Beirut, it was going to be even more empowering as the female agenda was a priority.
The festival opening left mixed, complicated impressions — taking place at Casino du Liban, a location that offered us a stunning view of the Lebanese Mediterranean coast, it combined the glamour of the red carpet with the military backdrop. Straight after the photocall, guests were watching videos of yet another airstrike that happened in another part of the city at the same time.
Despite this, everything was permeated with the zest for life. During the opening ceremony, the festival distinguished several women that make a difference — awards went to responsible artists, social entrepreneurs, and philanthropists. The honorary award was presented to Tunisian-Egyptian actress Hend Sabry who is known for her active involvement in social and humanitarian work. Thus under the protective embrace of Tanit, the Carthaginian goddess of wisdom, civilization and the crafts and symbol of the festival, we started this significant cinematic journey.
Through the festival, I was accompanied by two co-jurors: Lebanese filmmaker and producer, founder of the Tripoli Film Festival Elias Khlat, and the artistic director of the Rabat Film Festival Malak Dahmouni from Morocco. We created an interesting trio with very different backgrounds, which resulted in a heated discussion when it came to the deliberation meeting. It was challenging to decide how to prioritize one film over another, for all of them touched upon poignant topics worth being distinguished and thus additionally highlighted. First and foremost, it concerned a documentary from Afghanistan “Shot the Voice of Freedom” by Zainab Entezar, a film that got one of the two special mentions.
Filmed in secrecy and under constant threat, this film brings us to the heart of the resistance of Afghani women. Their lives changed dramatically since the establishment of the Taliban regime in 2021, and with the global community turning a blind eye to this terrifying situation, they have no one but themselves to count on. A group of women protests the loss of their basic rights, including the right to education, work, clothing, and even the right to walk alone. They are not fearless as they very well understand how much their actions can jeopardize not only themselves but their families. “We are even afraid of our window,” says the mother of Reshmin, the young female activist. “We are afraid neighbours will see your camera,” confesses Reshmin herself. We follow the group of protesting females to the streets of Kabul, where they immediately get surrounded by armed military men with their faces covered. It looks like a hunt for prey, yet the protagonists claim the Taliban cannot be compared to any predator as even wild animals won’t hunt unless out of hunger; they don’t kill for pleasure, and Taliban’s guns never get full.
It is interesting to observe the behaviour of a few men (not from the Taliban) in this film. Shying away from the camera, they do their best ignoring the pleas of women and their testimonials. Turning faces away, sticking to their phones, intimidated to become the next target for standing up to their wives, sisters, and daughters, they silently support the stigma imposed on women in Afghani society. “We are all in the same ship,” says one of them to the protesting girls. “You should stay silent.”
Even though the film ends with the escape of Reshmin to France, one cannot help but think about thousands of women who’d never be able either to leave or acquire decent lives in their own country. Most of their stories will remain untold, yet it’s up to us to decide if the stories breaking the silence will be heard, and if it will change anything. Disturbingly enough, even among festival guests, I heard the opinion that “the situation in Afghanistan changes and it’s getting better.” Could even the slightest improvement serve as a justification for the regime that denied basic human rights and mangled the lives of countless women? Could there be more than one answer to this question?
No compromises could be made in relation to the topic raised in another film, “Samar… Before The Final Picture,” by Egyptian director Aya Tallah Yusuf. Shot between Cairo and Dubai, it follows Samar who tries to rebuild her life after an acid attack by her ex-partner. The film captures five years of her mental and physical healing journey through helping another woman, Sanaa, who also was subjected to acid.
Samar’s resilience and optimism come as a true inspiration, yet she denies herself the title of a strong woman. As the story unfolds, we discover that this is but a mask that she is wearing to hide the extreme vulnerability and fatigue that comes with the injury that forever changed her appearance and the whole course of her life. The situation gets even worse when we arrive at the realisation that men who do such things to women who rejected them will never get punished, and their victims will have not only to live with the terrible consequences (if they were lucky to survive) but in the fear of the repeated attacks and shame that society imposes on them.
It gets even more surreal as we move to one of the next films, “Olatuak” (The Waves), by Itziar Leemans. Listening to the stories of women undergoing therapy, we discover that in the heart of Europe, in Spain, inhuman treatment is applied to prisoners with the full awareness and support of the state. In this documentary, Seven Basque women share testimonies of the physical and psychological torture that they underwent during their incommunicado detention.
Incommunicado detention denies prisoners access to legal representation and contact or correspondence with their families; being cut from the world, intimidated and mistreated, they rarely have other proof rather than their statements and ruined mental (and often physical) health to confront authorities. Being threatened, they often wouldn’t dare to do it, and the film shares the intimate psychological process of not healing but for now, only shedding light on the stories of female victims.
The next film on the list, also from Europe, came as a revelation to all jurors and the audience. “House with a Voice” by co-directors Kristine Nrecaj and Birthe Templin confronts not only gender stereotypes but our stereotypes about stereotypes!
The film reveals the life stories of six Burrneshas, Albanian women who, for different reasons, have decided to take on the social role of men. Curious enough to observe how stereotypical thinking interferes, making the viewers assume those women belong to the oppressed queer community. Yet in this film, it is not the case: They have done this to circumvent patriarchal structures, to avoid misogynistic attacks and compelled marriage, and to be free. In previous days in Albania, having a girl born into a family was considered a burden, and sometimes, to support the family economically, parents would decide to raise a newborn daughter as a son. What is surprising, it is seen as an acceptable choice by society — once the decision is made, the girl is treated like a boy with no bullying and no side looks. However, now she must match all the social expectations for males: to be tough, to work hard and provide, and to never disclose her feminine side.
Some of the women, however, abandoned their female identities willingly to be able to study or pursue a profession that was considered not acceptable for girls. Most of them don’t regret this decision and deem life without love (as they never get married) a worthy sacrifice for a much more coveted social freedom.
This film was also distinguished by our jury for its unique stand on gender problems in modern society.
The festival program provided a broad field for self-reflection on topics of gender equality, empowerment, intimacy, social conventions, the pressure of social media, body image, sexual orientation, relationships between generations and many other subjects that constitute everyday life of women all over the world. Having civil war, revolution, pandemics, and devastating explosion behind (not to mention the сontinuity of civilizations), Lebanon is a country that with its multilayered, complex history, offers interesting and encouraging context for discussion.
However, the festival could definitely benefit from bringing in a diverse audience. Despite the wide geography of films, not many international guests made it to Beirut physically, and the reasons varied from lack of funds and visa issues to security concerns. Now as the festival draws to an end, and I’m writing these lines before the closing ceremony (both electricity and internet were fixed), I am thankful that I found the courage, and perhaps a bit of recklessness, to come to Lebanon in person and try on the role of the messenger circulating between echo chambers. What I’ve learned, heard, and seen here is a lot to process, but even though my understanding of Lebanese history might have been superficial, it never stopped me from bonding with amazing women attending the festival, or those sharing their vision through the medium of art.
Most importantly, after all the challenging stories we’ve shared, I feel light at heart. Lebanese women do not grieve in silence but turn pain into a message: a message of love, peace, acceptance, and a call to action.
