A year after the warlords’ agreement in Taif, Saudi Arabia, the Lebanese civil war officially ended in 1990, with the Syrian regime seizing control of the presidential palace in Baabda and General Michel Aoun fleeing to his exile in France.   This is what we have read in newspapers and books, and what we have been seeing on television shows and documentaries. In reality, however, and more than twenty-eight years after its cessation, civil strife has continued to be at the core of public attention in Lebanon.   As is well known, Lebanon has not enjoyed real stability since 1990. It has been escaping... more

  “3 years ago, the inhabitants of “Al Marj” refugee camp located in the Bikaa Valley, fled from different regions in Syria to find refuge in Lebanon. Instead of finding a safe haven, they were subjected to a sudden order of evacuation on the grounds of the tents being in proximity to a military zone. The authorities granted the refugees only 5 days to dismantle their laboriously built tents, without offering any alternative settlement option.”   Director: Rami Nihawi, Lina Alabed and Nadim Deaibes Duration: 14:14 min Year of production: 2015 Produced by: Bidayyat

Earlier this month at the FIDMarseille international film festival, the Competition Grand Prize went to a feature-length documentary called “Our Terrible Country.” This Syrian-Lebanese co-production was co-directed by Mohammed Ali Atassi and Ziad Homsi, Syrian filmmakers of two generations. A road movie of sorts, “Our Terrible Country” documents another inter-generational relationship. It follows dissident Syrian intellectual Yassin Haj Saleh as he treks from Douma, northeast of Damascus, to Raqqa, the northern town where he was born, then into exile in Turkey. It is an emotional passage. Haj Saleh was forced to leave his wife in Douma. Homsi, who accompanied the dissident... more