SOCIAL STUDIES features works by Maher Abi Samra, Marwa Arsanios, Christian Ghazi & Jumana Manna.
This program presents Christian Ghazi’s 1969 film A Hundred Faces for a Single Day in conversation with three films from Lebanon and Palestine made between 2008 and 2016.
Ghazi’s avant-garde cinematic manifesto captures a society at the cusp between Lebanon’s so-called Golden Age and the protracted civil war that would erupt soon after in 1975. Depicting the early days of a revolutionary moment—in which the filmmaker was a participant—that brought Palestinian and Lebanese liberation struggles together with workers’ movements, the film is a scathing critique of Lebanon’s political and cultural bourgeoisie, as well as a warning against neglecting one’s own internal pitfalls.
Decades after Ghazi’s Hundred Faces, the films of Maher Abi Samra, Marwa Arsanios, and Jumana Manna can be said to turn our gaze inwards once again to grapple with a social oblivion conveniently masked by more pressing political concerns. Their films ask how the task of building a shared social consciousness becomes constantly consumed by sectarian divisions, military occupation, and corruption, whereby any kind of social reckoning or emancipation remains a mostly private undertaking. When will such efforts gain entry into politics?
- Amal Issa, Curator
I've Heard Stories 1 (2008)
Arabic with English subtitles
Built by Polish architect Karol Schayer in 1957, the iconic Carlton Hotel was, in its time, a popular meeting place for gay men in Beirut. Between 1973 and 1993, the hotel was also the setting of three murders that might or might not have been related to sexual encounters. Among the victims of these (probably) passionate crimes was Lebanese politician and businessman Henri Pharaoun. Known as the designer of the Lebanese flag and, for much of his lifetime, as Lebanon’s wealthiest man, Pharaoun was found dead beside his driver/bodyguard, both stabbed multiple times. The nature of the murder went unreported but was rumored to have been committed by a former lover who had also worked for him. Arsanios’ reconstruction of the event—made just prior to the hotel’s demolition in 2008—blends animation and video, gossip, and fact in an effort to give the crime a place in the city’s history.
About the Filmmaker
Marwa Arsanios is an artist, filmmaker and researcher whose work can take the form of installation, performance and moving image. She reconsiders the political development of the second half of the twentieth century from a contemporary perspective, focusing on gender relations, collectivism, urbanism and industrialization. Her research work includes many disciplines and is deployed in numerous collaborative projects.
Several solo exhibitions have been dedicated to her work: Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati (2021); Skuc Gallery, Ljubljana (2018); Beirut Art Center (2017); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2016); Witte de With, Rotterdam (2016); Kunsthalle Lissabon, Lisbon (2015); and Art in General, New York (2015).
Her films have been screened at Cinéma du Réel, Paris (2021); Rotterdam Film Festival (2021); EMAF, Osnabrück (2021); Film Fest, Hamburg (2020); State of Concept, Athens (2020); FID Marseille (2019); tiff, Toronto (2019); RIDM, Montreal (2019); Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival (2019); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2017); Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2011, 2017); Berlin International Film Festival (2010, 2015); and e-flux storefront, New York (2009).
She received the Georges de Beauregard International Prize at FID Marseille (2019), the Special Prize of the Pinchuk Future Generation Art Prize (2012), and was nominated for the Paulo Cunha e Silva Art Prize (2017) and the Han Nefkens Foundation Award (2014). She was awarded the Akademie Schloss Solitude scholarship in Stuttgart in 2014 and the Tokyo Wonder Site, Tokyo Arts and Space in 2010. She is a co-founder of the 98weeks Research Project.
- Year2008
- Runtime4:48
- LanguageArabic
- CountryLebanon
- DirectorMarwa Arsanios
- ScreenwriterMarwa Arsanios
- ProducerMarwa Arsanios
- Executive ProducerMarwa Arsanios
- CastMarwa Arsanios, Nora
- CinematographerMarwa Arsanios
- EditorCarine Doumit
- AnimatorCarine Doumit
SOCIAL STUDIES features works by Maher Abi Samra, Marwa Arsanios, Christian Ghazi & Jumana Manna.
This program presents Christian Ghazi’s 1969 film A Hundred Faces for a Single Day in conversation with three films from Lebanon and Palestine made between 2008 and 2016.
Ghazi’s avant-garde cinematic manifesto captures a society at the cusp between Lebanon’s so-called Golden Age and the protracted civil war that would erupt soon after in 1975. Depicting the early days of a revolutionary moment—in which the filmmaker was a participant—that brought Palestinian and Lebanese liberation struggles together with workers’ movements, the film is a scathing critique of Lebanon’s political and cultural bourgeoisie, as well as a warning against neglecting one’s own internal pitfalls.
Decades after Ghazi’s Hundred Faces, the films of Maher Abi Samra, Marwa Arsanios, and Jumana Manna can be said to turn our gaze inwards once again to grapple with a social oblivion conveniently masked by more pressing political concerns. Their films ask how the task of building a shared social consciousness becomes constantly consumed by sectarian divisions, military occupation, and corruption, whereby any kind of social reckoning or emancipation remains a mostly private undertaking. When will such efforts gain entry into politics?
- Amal Issa, Curator
I've Heard Stories 1 (2008)
Arabic with English subtitles
Built by Polish architect Karol Schayer in 1957, the iconic Carlton Hotel was, in its time, a popular meeting place for gay men in Beirut. Between 1973 and 1993, the hotel was also the setting of three murders that might or might not have been related to sexual encounters. Among the victims of these (probably) passionate crimes was Lebanese politician and businessman Henri Pharaoun. Known as the designer of the Lebanese flag and, for much of his lifetime, as Lebanon’s wealthiest man, Pharaoun was found dead beside his driver/bodyguard, both stabbed multiple times. The nature of the murder went unreported but was rumored to have been committed by a former lover who had also worked for him. Arsanios’ reconstruction of the event—made just prior to the hotel’s demolition in 2008—blends animation and video, gossip, and fact in an effort to give the crime a place in the city’s history.
About the Filmmaker
Marwa Arsanios is an artist, filmmaker and researcher whose work can take the form of installation, performance and moving image. She reconsiders the political development of the second half of the twentieth century from a contemporary perspective, focusing on gender relations, collectivism, urbanism and industrialization. Her research work includes many disciplines and is deployed in numerous collaborative projects.
Several solo exhibitions have been dedicated to her work: Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati (2021); Skuc Gallery, Ljubljana (2018); Beirut Art Center (2017); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2016); Witte de With, Rotterdam (2016); Kunsthalle Lissabon, Lisbon (2015); and Art in General, New York (2015).
Her films have been screened at Cinéma du Réel, Paris (2021); Rotterdam Film Festival (2021); EMAF, Osnabrück (2021); Film Fest, Hamburg (2020); State of Concept, Athens (2020); FID Marseille (2019); tiff, Toronto (2019); RIDM, Montreal (2019); Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival (2019); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2017); Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2011, 2017); Berlin International Film Festival (2010, 2015); and e-flux storefront, New York (2009).
She received the Georges de Beauregard International Prize at FID Marseille (2019), the Special Prize of the Pinchuk Future Generation Art Prize (2012), and was nominated for the Paulo Cunha e Silva Art Prize (2017) and the Han Nefkens Foundation Award (2014). She was awarded the Akademie Schloss Solitude scholarship in Stuttgart in 2014 and the Tokyo Wonder Site, Tokyo Arts and Space in 2010. She is a co-founder of the 98weeks Research Project.
- Year2008
- Runtime4:48
- LanguageArabic
- CountryLebanon
- DirectorMarwa Arsanios
- ScreenwriterMarwa Arsanios
- ProducerMarwa Arsanios
- Executive ProducerMarwa Arsanios
- CastMarwa Arsanios, Nora
- CinematographerMarwa Arsanios
- EditorCarine Doumit
- AnimatorCarine Doumit