Beirut DC Impact Fund Round 1 recipients

We are proud to announce the launch of the first round of Beirut DC Impact Fund, the first of its kind in the Arab region. The fund supports Impact Campaigns built around groundbreaking Arab films that address the most important social, political and environmental issues facing our region – helping them reach their rightful audience and affect change.

Aimed at Impact Campaigns, the fund can support any activities related to that campaign, including fees/salaries for the Impact Producer and/or the team working on the campaign. The idea is to provide seed funding for the campaign launch to enable the film teams to mobilize further partnerships and funding.

Four projects supported by the Beirut DC Impact fund in its first round for the first edition, address the issues of adolescents in the countryside “Under The Fig Tree” Tunisia, the rebellion against patriarchy “Land of Women” Egypt, prisoners suffering from mental illnesses “The Blue Inmates” Lebanon, and memory in war and peace “Do you love me” Lebanon.

The projects were selected by Jury members Samia Labidi, Cindy Mezher, and Hanna Atallah.

SAMIA LABIDI

Samia Labidi is a Tunisian-French independent curator and cultural producer. She collaborates with artists collectives and cultural institutions as a consultant for artistic and strategic development. A graduate of Political Science from La Sorbonne (Paris), in 2020 Samia was the advisor to the Tunisian Ministry of Culture, Chiraz Latiri. She is currently based in Tunisia, focusing on research on arts and culture in and from the MENA region and Africa.

CINDY MEZHER

Cindy Mezher works in culture with diverse experience working with multi-media arts and cultural institutions, initiatives and events, and interests.

Mezher is interested in studying the political, social, and economic impact in and on the production processes of arts and culture and is particularly concerned with institutional development in this sector. She currently directs the North African Cultural Program at the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture – Afac.

HANNA ATALLAH

Hanna Atallah is a filmmaker, producer, and cultural manager living between Berlin and Jerusalem. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Film Studies from the High Institute of Cinema at the Egyptian Academy of Arts.

Atallah is the founder FilmLab Palestine and the founder and director of Palestine Cinema Days, one of the leading international film festivals in Palestine that focuses on cinema culture and has become a venue for arthouse films in the region.

UNDER THE FIG TREES • ERIGE SEHIRI

Among the trees, young women and men working the summer harvest develop new feelings, flirt, try to understand each other, find – and flee – deeper connections.

LAND OF WOMEN • NADA RIYADH AND AYMAN EL AMIR

In a conservative village in the South of Egypt, a lively group of Coptic girls refuses the traditional roles forced upon them by forming an all-female street theatre troupe. A coming-of-age portrait of girls at the crossroads of their lives.

THE BLUE INMATES • ZEINA DACCACHE

The film follows inmates in Roumieh Prison (Lebanon) who produced a theatre play inside prison about their fellow inmates suffering from mental illness. Unfortunately, the Lebanese Penal Code, enacted in 1943, stipulates that “Insane”, “Mad” or “Possessed” offenders shall be incarcerated until evidence of “being cured”, however, mental illness is managed and never cured.

DO YOU LOVE ME (WORKING TITLE) • LANA DAHER

An archive-based documentary that follows Lebanese society from the 1950s until today. It utilizes a wide range of archival material collected from newsreels, televised interviews, video art pieces, print, local television, newspapers, international news archives, documentary and narrative films, as well as local and international photographers + personal archives (home videos, photo albums). The film covers the oscillation between moments of war and peace during the following periods: the 50’s, Lebanon’s Glory days (the 60s & early 70s), the periods of war and civil unrest (1975-1991), and its “post-war” era (90’s until today). Featuring the stories, anecdotes, songs, art, and culture of the people who remained in Lebanon through these years, we begin to understand this society’s dynamics and psyche. Rather than recounting a more traditional history, the film attempts to portray a social/emotional history of the Lebanese people. It presents us with the conundrum of a country that is stuck between a rock and a hard place, unable to agree on its own past, hence blurring its own vision of the present and hindering itself from moving forward. The collective memory of the generations in question is studied through this film. The film’s focus is not on a deep nostalgia for the past or the promise of any answers, instead, it lingers on the questions raised about life in these challenging times and how it affects their experience of the present (how can we co-exist today?).