May 2019

Ayam Beirut Al Cinema’iya

In its 10th edition, the biennial Ayam Beirut Al Cinema’iya took place from March 29 to April 6, 2019. The film festival has showcased, fostered, and defended Arab films made and conceived independently, however vague a definition that might be, for the past twenty years. Middle Eastern cinema has historically struggled on two fronts: the domestic one, in the fight against censorship; and the far more insidious international one. In the artistic flight from poor or inexistent funding and distribution circuits that favor commercial cinema (from either Egypt or the US), Arab filmmakers in many cases have had to rely