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From June 14 to 17, 2012, TIFF will present a special retrospective, Once Upon a Time, Lebanon: Visions of Postwar in New Lebanese Cinema. Curated by Rasha Salti, TIFF’s programmer of African and Middle Eastern Cinema, the screening programme boasts a lineup of 15 feature length and short films from the most internationally acclaimed national cinema in the region.

New Lebanese Cinema emerged after two decades of civil war. With no organized film industry to work within, this new generation of independent filmmakers, “profoundly committed to the social and political reality of their country,” built a close-knit and shared film community based on friendship and culture. The retrospective kicks off on Thursday, June 14 with a screening of Once Upon a Time: Beirut (1994) from Jocelyne Saab, and will be preceded by an informative overview of Lebanese cinema with Rasha Salti.

Other highlights include: Terra Incognita (2001), a film that won Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival; Michel Kammoun’s Falafel (2006); the comic coming of age story OK, Enough, Goodbye (2011) from Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia; A Perfect Day (2005), winner of the FIPRESCI Prize at the Locarno Film Festival; and Mohamed Soueid’s My Heart Beats Only For Her (2008).

For more information on this retrospective or anything else going on at TIFF Bell Lightbox, please visit their website.

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Pam Fossen

Obsessed with watching movies as far back as she can remember, Pam loves film enough to have two university degrees in the subject. When not focused on a movie screen, she can usually be found reading, cooking, touring vineyards, or planning where to spend her vacation time.

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