Though often personal, the cinema of Mohamed Soueid is never onanistic. On the contrary, his passions, obsessions, and observations are orchestrated through a panoply of voices, characters, and (unrelated) circumstances. The director’s voice is polyphonous, obliquely counter-intuitive. Even when interviewing other people, something Soueid excels at, he is always telling us something about himself. His films are almost devoid of biographical elements and yet radiate visions and fragments of his life. Contrary to dominant trends, inclusivity in the cinema of Mohamed Soueid is not a performance but a reality. Which is why it is pointless to even categorize his films as either fiction or documentary, for their material hospitality makes labels superfluous. His cinema simply is. It is the organic and therefore incoherent incarnation of his unfiltered curiosity, of his convivial friendships and his boundless love for cinema.
The MOHAMED SOUEID RETROSPECTIVE is co-presented by ArteEast and Anthology Film Archives and curated by Giovanni Vimercati. This series is part of the legacy program Unpacking the ArteArchive, which preserves and presents over 17 years of film and video programming by ArteEast.
These films is available for streaming to all audiences around the globe between August 12-21, 2022.
Tango of Yearning (1998) is the first episode of an autobiographical trilogy on postwar Lebanon, later including Nightfall (2000) and Civil War (2002). Taking its title from Tango of Hope, a classic ballad by Nur al-Huda, the film draws from the director’s reflections on war, love, and cinema, as well as his personal experience at the public television channel TéléLiban. Conjuring various snippets of audiovisual archival material, the film is a poetic elegy to film, Beirut’s movie theaters, and a city undergoing radical transformation. Mohamed Soueid has long been a proponent of the experimental video documentary movement in Lebanon, playing a significant role in the country’s creative renaissance since the end of the civil war. Originally trained as a news videographer during the war, the experience offered him a facility with the medium, which he further developed by making non-linear documentary films with a distinctly personal take.
About the Filmmaker
Video pioneer, cinema auteur, and television producer Mohamed Soueid has collected stories from his compatriots for most of his adult life. Widely regarded as Beirut’s first video artist, Soueid films defy categorization. Soueid has also worked as a film critic and wrote two books on cinema, Postponed Cinema –Lebanese Films During the Civil War (1986) and O Heart – A Film Autobiography on the Late Movie Theaters of Old Beirut (1996).
Though often personal, the cinema of Mohamed Soueid is never onanistic. On the contrary, his passions, obsessions, and observations are orchestrated through a panoply of voices, characters, and (unrelated) circumstances. Contrary to dominant trends, inclusivity in the cinema of Soueid is not a performance but a reality, which is why it is pointless to even categorize his films as either fiction or documentary. His cinema simply is. It is the organic and therefore incoherent incarnation of his unfiltered curiosity, of his convivial friendships and his boundless love for cinema.
Soueid’s direction is neither omniscient nor omnipotent; he does not pretend or even try to resolve the contradictions his films contain. He is not afraid to expose his own fragility, as a man and a filmmaker, something so very rare in the cinema of all ages and places – Giovanni Vimercati
- Year1998
- Runtime70 minutes
- LanguageArabic
- CountryLebanon
- DirectorMohamed Soueid
Though often personal, the cinema of Mohamed Soueid is never onanistic. On the contrary, his passions, obsessions, and observations are orchestrated through a panoply of voices, characters, and (unrelated) circumstances. The director’s voice is polyphonous, obliquely counter-intuitive. Even when interviewing other people, something Soueid excels at, he is always telling us something about himself. His films are almost devoid of biographical elements and yet radiate visions and fragments of his life. Contrary to dominant trends, inclusivity in the cinema of Mohamed Soueid is not a performance but a reality. Which is why it is pointless to even categorize his films as either fiction or documentary, for their material hospitality makes labels superfluous. His cinema simply is. It is the organic and therefore incoherent incarnation of his unfiltered curiosity, of his convivial friendships and his boundless love for cinema.
The MOHAMED SOUEID RETROSPECTIVE is co-presented by ArteEast and Anthology Film Archives and curated by Giovanni Vimercati. This series is part of the legacy program Unpacking the ArteArchive, which preserves and presents over 17 years of film and video programming by ArteEast.
These films is available for streaming to all audiences around the globe between August 12-21, 2022.
Tango of Yearning (1998) is the first episode of an autobiographical trilogy on postwar Lebanon, later including Nightfall (2000) and Civil War (2002). Taking its title from Tango of Hope, a classic ballad by Nur al-Huda, the film draws from the director’s reflections on war, love, and cinema, as well as his personal experience at the public television channel TéléLiban. Conjuring various snippets of audiovisual archival material, the film is a poetic elegy to film, Beirut’s movie theaters, and a city undergoing radical transformation. Mohamed Soueid has long been a proponent of the experimental video documentary movement in Lebanon, playing a significant role in the country’s creative renaissance since the end of the civil war. Originally trained as a news videographer during the war, the experience offered him a facility with the medium, which he further developed by making non-linear documentary films with a distinctly personal take.
About the Filmmaker
Video pioneer, cinema auteur, and television producer Mohamed Soueid has collected stories from his compatriots for most of his adult life. Widely regarded as Beirut’s first video artist, Soueid films defy categorization. Soueid has also worked as a film critic and wrote two books on cinema, Postponed Cinema –Lebanese Films During the Civil War (1986) and O Heart – A Film Autobiography on the Late Movie Theaters of Old Beirut (1996).
Though often personal, the cinema of Mohamed Soueid is never onanistic. On the contrary, his passions, obsessions, and observations are orchestrated through a panoply of voices, characters, and (unrelated) circumstances. Contrary to dominant trends, inclusivity in the cinema of Soueid is not a performance but a reality, which is why it is pointless to even categorize his films as either fiction or documentary. His cinema simply is. It is the organic and therefore incoherent incarnation of his unfiltered curiosity, of his convivial friendships and his boundless love for cinema.
Soueid’s direction is neither omniscient nor omnipotent; he does not pretend or even try to resolve the contradictions his films contain. He is not afraid to expose his own fragility, as a man and a filmmaker, something so very rare in the cinema of all ages and places – Giovanni Vimercati
- Year1998
- Runtime70 minutes
- LanguageArabic
- CountryLebanon
- DirectorMohamed Soueid