Show Us The Money And We Will Resist

Film program curated by Nour Ouayda for the 34th edition of the European Media Arts Festival (EMAF) | April 2021 | Online

“The first image is always a surprise”, says a voice-over in Akram Zaatari’s video Countdown. This video is part of a series called Image + Sound that edits TV news footage alongside staged events. It aired on the Lebanese Future TV in the mid-’90s as part of the morning show Aalam al Sabah. How did such an experiment in form end up on Saturday morning TV in 1995? “You need to shock the viewers,” says Fouad Naïm, director of TéléLiban between 1993 and 1996, when asked why he would program a show as experimental as Mohamed Soueid’s Being Camelia on public television. The first image is always a surprise but, past that initial encounter, the second, the third, and all the images that come after are less of a shock as they make way to showing the viewers that “there exists an alphabet other than the one they are used to”, Naïm explains.

The 1990s in Lebanon were marked by efforts of reconstruction of the capital and the country following a general amnesty law that ended the civil war without any reparations. It was within this context that a restructuring of the television sector took place with the government reducing the fifty existing channels (each political party and militia had its own broadcasting channel) to around ten. Channels such as TéléLiban, a public television network owned by the Lebanese government, and the newly founded private Future TV recruited young talents and gave them access to professional equipment and airtime. This led to the unusual (and since never repeated) freedom to produce various video experiments on TV, marking the beginning of the careers of filmmakers such as Mohamed Soueid and Akram Zaatari.

Today, the use of social media and online platforms by institutions and initiatives as space to commission works creates a similar structure of production, allowing for and stimulating experimental film gestures that cannot find a place in the more normative residency-grant-festival-circuit. This recourse to social media, and especially a platform such as Instagram, has gained more importance since the beginning of the pandemic. Structures such as the Beirut Art Center have been using these platforms to host their online micro-commissions while Rehla, an underground experimental magazine, uses it to publish found footage mashups that relate to a monthly theme explored in each issue. We also see filmmakers and video artists using these platforms as an extension to their work and research such as Chantal Partamian’s Katsakh¹Katsakh means vinegar in Armenian, in reference to the vinegar syndrome, “the chemical degradation that occurs with cellulose acetate film”. account in which she explores various analog film processes through short capsules that allow us to peek into her experimental film practice.

Zaatari describes his videos from the time he worked at Future TV as “moments stolen from television and not produced by television.” The freedom to experiment is not only one that is granted but one that is taken and reclaimed in order to hijack and subvert a certain production apparatus. “Let’s raid the television”, Fouad Naïm and Mohamed Soueid used to say. Echoing two distinct moments in time (Lebanon of the mid-1990s and today), the works in this program unfold various unexpected gestures in film and video experimentation that act as small beacons of resistance, showing that different modes of production are always still possible.

So: show us the money, give us access to the infrastructures, and we will resist.

The program was coposed of two curated screening sessions, a recorded conversation between the curator and filmmakers Akram Zaatari & Mohamed Soueid. Watch the conversation here.

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Program #1 | 95 minutes

 In 1994, when tuning onto TéléLiban to watch the evening news, you would find yourself watching a very curious episode of the series Being Camelia. Unlike anything that was aired on primetime Lebanese television before, viewers’ reactions varied from rejection to incomprehension that such content, considered confusing and irrelevant, was being shown on national television. Being Camelia was one of the three series that Mohamed Soueid made during his time at TéléLiban. After leaving the station in 1997, Soueid decided to pay tribute to that period and to all those that accompanied him in his formal and narrative experimentations and started filming Tango of Yearning.

Being Camelia (Ana fil Camelia) – a selection of 7 episodes

Mohamed Soueid | 1994 | 24’
Color | Arabic & English | Video File

A series of experimental short clips that Mohamed Soueid directed while part of the team of TéléLiban, Lebanon’s main public television channel. Initially intended as a special filler program on food and scheduled to be aired during Ramadan in 1994, these 34 films, each five minutes, were turned into a controversial satirical daily series criticizing Lebanese food culture and depicting the ongoing changes impacting postwar Lebanon.

Tango of Yearning (Tango al Amal)

Mohamed Soueid | 1998 | 71’
B&W / Color | Arabic with English Subtitles | Video File

In this first film, Mohamed Soueid looks back on the years of war spent in cinemas, his disappointed loves and interviews his friends about the television series he directed (Being Camelia) or about himself. This film, where love and cinema take center stage in an attempt to reconstruct the shattered image of a lost passionate life. It also examines how it was possible to become a filmmaker in a post-war Beirut.

Program #2 | 83 minutes

What space is given for experimentation? What tools, budgets and infrastructures? We usually view the experimental film gesture as long hours spent in a lonely studio with no budget and a lot of DIY equipment. But sometimes being the executive producer of a morning show on a newly inaugurated television station or being commissioned to make videos for a recently created underground publication provides a structure that gives filmmakers the freedom to try out new forms. The works in this program labor from within the constraints of these structures to produce various experiments in film and video.

Image + Sound: Countdown

Akram Zaatari | 1995 | 6’ 39’’
Color | Arabic with English Subtitles | Video File

An episode from a Lebanese TV series entitled Image + Sound.  Each episode in this series is based on paralleling TV news images alongside staged events. Countdown was shot in the Gemayzeh neighborhood in Beirut, Lebanon.

Rehla: White Revolution / Black Revolution

Hassane Chami | 2020 | 2’06”
B&W / Color | English & Arabic | Video File

This video essay is a poetic attempt at desacralising the omnipresent figure of Nabih Berri, head of Lebanese parliament for 30 years and a symbol of the corrupt Lebanese politico-economic system. It was produced in July 2020 for Rehla’s 12th issue entitled Distancing.

Katsakh: The people want the fall of the regime

Chantal Partamian | 9”
Color | Silent | S8 to Digital | Video File

A capsule from Chantal Partamian’s Katsakh project, experiments on and with film originally published on Instagram. Katsakh means vinegar in Armenian, in reference to the vinegar syndrome, “the chemical degradation that occurs with cellulous acetate film”.

Rehla: 1+1

Ali J. Dalloul | 2020 | 2’ 31”
B&W / Color | English with Arabic subtitles | Video File

The video essay revolves around the possibility of the 1+1=1 theory, philosophically not mathematically, at a time when the idea of federalism is gaining popularity in the country.

“1+1” represents two different approaches to managing a certain entity. The “=1” is the possibility of making these two approaches coexist to create one entity. The video depicts different systems in politics, and compares the process of forcing them to exist together to two magnets repelling when the poles are too close together. It was produced for Rehla’s 12th issue entitled Distancing.

Katsakh: On the day I left

Chantal Partamian | 14”
Color | Silent | S8 to Digital | Video File

A capsule from Chantal Partamian’s Katsakh project, experiments on and with film originally published on Instagram. Katsakh means vinegar in Armenian, in reference to the vinegar syndrome, “the chemical degradation that occurs with cellulous acetate film”.

Being Camelia (Ana fil Camelia) – a selection of 8 episodes

Mohamed Soueid | 1994 | 32’
Color | Arabic & English | Video File

A series of experimental short clips that Mohamed Soueid directed while part of the team of TéléLiban, Lebanon’s main public television channel. Initially intended as a special filler program on food and scheduled to be aired during Ramadan in 1994, these 34 films, each five minutes, were turned into a controversial satirical daily series criticizing Lebanese food culture and depicting the ongoing changes impacting postwar Lebanon.

Katsakh: Obsolete Frames

Chantal Partamian | 42”
Color | Silent | S8 to Digital | Video File

A capsule from Chantal Partamian’s Katsakh project, experiments on and with film originally published on Instagram. Katsakh means vinegar in Armenian, in reference to the vinegar syndrome, “the chemical degradation that occurs with cellulous acetate film”.

Rehla: Modern Symphony

Ali J. Dalloul | 2020 | 2’ 49”
B&W / Color | English with Arabic subtitles | Video File

This video essay mocks the modern man’s struggle to label and distinguish himself from the rest of society, while trying his best to rise above it. It was produced for Rehla’s 17th issue entitled Museum of Modern Man.

Katsakh: 1km to Palestine

Chantal Partamian | 9”
Color | Silent | S8 to Digital | Video File

A capsule from Chantal Partamian’s Katsakh project, experiments on and with film originally published on Instagram. Katsakh means vinegar in Armenian, in reference to the vinegar syndrome, “the chemical degradation that occurs with cellulous acetate film”.

Image + Sound: Mourning Images

Akram Zaatari | 1995 | 6’ 10’’
Color | Arabic with English Subtitles | Video File

An episode from a Lebanese TV series entitled Image + Sound.  Each episode in this series is based on paralleling TV news images alongside staged events. Mourning Images was shot at Studio Bayroumi in the historic district of Saida, Lebanon.

Rehla: Our Phantom Pregnancy

Ali J. Dalloul | 2020 | 2’ 13”
B&W / Color | Arabic & English | Video File

The video essay takes a critical look at the subject of Nostalgia, at a time in which people are drowning in their nostalgic fantasies. It uses Youtube comments converted to robotic voices, discussing feelings of Nostalgia as a reaction to a video posted online. It was produced for Rehla’s 10th issue entitled Nostalgia.

Katsakh: Quantum superposition and states

Chantal Partamian | 6”
Color | Silent | S8 to Digital | Video File

A capsule from Chantal Partamian’s Katsakh project, experiments on and with film originally published on Instagram. Katsakh means vinegar in Armenian, in reference to the vinegar syndrome, “the chemical degradation that occurs with cellulous acetate film”.

Micro-Commissions #3: Insecure

Singeuse
Danielle Davie | 2020 | 4’59”
Color | Arabic & French | Video File

Unstuck or Billy Pilgrim Has Become Unstuck in Time 
Panos Aprahamian | 2020 | 4’26”
Color | Arabic & English | Video File

Parasomnia 
Lara Tabet | 2020 | 4’38”
Color | Arabic & English | Video File

Emergence
Malak Mroueh | 2020 | 3’30”
Color | English with Arabic subtitles | Video File

4 filmmakers and videographers were invited by the Beirut Art Center (BAC) to make a short narrative film using only recordings from the 6 security cameras set up in the BAC’s space. During the preparations for these commissions, a heavier reference imposed itself onto the visual imaginaries tied to CCTV footage, and that is the anticipation of the disaster that rushed into the intimacy of our lives and demolished our shelters.

Katsakh: The Eternal Flame

Chantal Partamian | 7”
Color | No dialog | S8 to Digital | Video File

A capsule from Chantal Partamian’s Katsakh project, experiments on and with film originally published on Instagram. Katsakh means vinegar in Armenian, in reference to the vinegar syndrome, “the chemical degradation that occurs with cellulous acetate film”.

Rehla: Limbo

Ali J. Dalloul | 2020 | 3’ 35”
B&W / Color | English | Video File

The video essay criticizes western psychology when applied in a country like Lebanon. “The constant fear of the bomb” could be analyzed as an irrational fear in psychology but the August 4th explosion proved that this fear is both very rational and very real. This video was produced for Rehla’s 14th issue entitled Will.

Image + Sound: Teach Me

Akram Zaatari | 1996 | 6’
Color | Arabic with English Subtitles | Video File

An episode from a Lebanese TV series entitled Image + Sound.  Each episode in this program was based on paralleling TV news images alongside staged events. This episode was shot at the St. Georges church in Beirut before its renovation.