Unpacking the ArteArchive

SOCIAL STUDIES

Expired September 24, 2022 3:59 AM
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5 films in package
A Maid For Each
Domestic work is a real market in Lebanon, segmented according to the national and ethnic origins of the workers and in which the Lebanese employer is master and the worker the property. Zein owns a domestic worker agency in Beirut. He arranges for Asian and African women to work in Lebanese households and assists his clients in choosing “mail-order” housemaids that will best suit their needs. Advertisement, justice, police are on his side. He decides to open his agency for us.
I've Heard Stories 1
Built by Polish architect Karol Schayer in 1957, the iconic Carlton Hotel had been, in its time, a popular meeting place for gay men living in Beirut, Lebanon. Between 1973 and 1993, the hotel was also the setting of three murders that might or might not have been related to the sexual encounters. Among the victims of these (rumored to be 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, and 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 history of the city. A mysterious witness, Nora, is conjured before an invisible audience.
Blessed Blessed Oblivion
BLESSED BLESSED OBLIVION weaves together a portrait of performative masculinity in East Jerusalem, as manifested in gyms, body shops and hair dressing parlors.
One Hundred Faces for a Single Day
In this film, Christian Ghazi combines dramatic narration with documentary footage in order to give an analytical perspective of the Lebanese society in the early seventies. “Hundred faces for a single day” is one of the few political Arab films that present a new form of audio and visual narration. It won the jury prize in the festival of alternative cinema in Damascus 1972.
Filmmaker Jumana Manna in conversation with Amir Husak

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

A Maid For Each (2016)

Arabic, Amharic with English subtitles



Today, having a live-in maid in Lebanon is no longer a luxury nor a distinction of social class, but a common practice for upper and middle (mostly urban) classes since the end of the Lebanese Civil War in 1990. Domestic work is a real market in Lebanon, segmented according to the nationality and ethnicity of the workers, and in which the Lebanese employer is master and the worker the property. Zein owns a domestic worker agency in Beirut. He arranges for Asian and African women to work in Lebanese households and assists his clients in choosing “mail-order” housemaids that will best suit their needs. Advertisement, the legal system, police are on his side. He agrees to open his agency to us.



About the Filmmaker:


Maher Abi Samra was born in Beirut in 1965. He studied Drama Arts at the Lebanese University in Beirut and Audio-Visual Studies at the Institut National de l’Image et du Son in Paris, and has worked as a photo-journalist for Lebanese dailies, and international agencies.

  • Year
    2016
  • Runtime
    67 minutes
  • Language
    Arabic, Amharic
  • Country
    Lebanon, France, UAE, Norway
  • Premiere
    Berlinale- Forum
  • Director
    Maher Abi Samra
  • Screenwriter
    Maher Abi Samra
  • Producer
    Orjouane Productions (Sabine Sidawi and Jinane Dagher) (Lebanon)
  • Co-Producer
    Les Films D'ici (France)- Medieoperatorene (Norway)
  • Filmmaker
    Maher Abi Samra
  • Cinematographer
    Claire Mathon
  • Editor
    Rana Sabbagha- Ruben Korenfeld
  • Animator
    Fadi Baki
  • Sound Design
    Fadi Tabbal- Stephane Rives
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