In 1999 we were a group of filmmakers and cinema enthusiasts in Lebanon; we created a cinematic cooperative for ourselves and called it Beirut DC, a space of solidarity in which we could satisfy the urgent need for creativity and the kind passion for cinema. We helped each other to produce our films and reconnected with independent Arab cinema through Beirut Cinema Days in an attempt to deliver Arab films to a receptive audience. We reconnected ourselves to cinema and brought the Arab region to our film theaters. Back then, we didn’t have a vision for what we could do in the future; we were following our society’s need, and ours, for expression, to declare victory over the war.
In 2006 the cooperative was changed into an organization with the same name, and work started on launching multiple programs and projects aiming to support independent Arab cinema.
The days went by and brought us here, to Aflamuna; our films.
Those films that are ours, made together, telling our own story, watered by our lives, imagination, and hopes. In a world violently pushing towards fragmentation, discrimination, and savage individualism, Aflamuna is here to unite and shed light on what is beautiful in the “us”. A uniting “us” that doesn’t discriminate that starts in the Arab region and flies to the world at large. We are proud of the name Beirut DC as it celebrates its 24th birthday, and we take pride in what it achieved, which we will not abandon. But today, we have to lay this name to rest and choose one that is more inclusive than a city, one that includes the entire Arab region and connects filmmakers from these lands with their widespread audience.
Aflamuna carries its legacy with pride and moves forward.
Today Aflamuna is the result of the same commitment we held ourselves to in 1999. A commitment that grew with the developing needs of the film sector as time went on, as resources declined and censorship of creative production increased, as the security situation deteriorated and the risks for every free voice became more threatening in an increasingly shrinking space for our narratives besieged by mutilated extremist narratives.
Thus, driven by the need for and the pertinence to a vast, diverse, and rich Arab culture, the organization today supports those driven by the same passion and facing what we face and had faced in terms of hardships throughout the Arab region and beyond it.
Today, after more than two decades, and based on the many experiences we had with filmmakers in the Arab region, we renew our commitment to supporting Arab cinematic creativity by defending the freedom of expression and opposing the tyranny of censorship, as well as supporting the independence of filmmakers in the Arab region and trying to improve their working conditions by alleviating their financial and moral struggles, in the hope we contribute to them remaining in their countries, and developing the film sector to include all form of cultural, social, political and economic diversity.
On the one hand, we work on creating opportunities for marginalized and oppressed narratives that could help affect lived realities when given the chance to reach their rightful audience. And on the other hand, we work on providing the conditions for these narratives to impact their society politically, environmentally, and socially by creating a participatory space for cooperation between films, civil society, and the audience.
All this requires securing the right of films to reach the broadest possible audience; thus, the organization works on better accessibility of the audience to watch films through innovative, nontraditional screening spaces, locally, regionally (Arab region), and internationally.
This is what Aflamuna stands for today. These are our commitments, derived from the needs of the film sector and the needs of its audience.
