Cinema of Lebanon
| Cinema of Lebanon | |
|---|---|
| No. of screens | 185 (2009) |
| • Per capita | 4.7 per 100,000 (2009) |
| Main distributors | Haddad & Co Italia Film Fathalla |
| Produced feature films (2011) | |
| Fictional | 11 (78.6%) |
| Animated | - |
| Documentary | 3 (21.4%) |
| Number of admissions (2010) | |
| Total | 2,794,708 |
| National films | 16,666 (0.49%) |
| Gross box office (2006) | |
| Total | LBP 48.4 million |
| National films | LBP 2 million (4.1%) |
The cinema of Lebanon, according to film critic and historian Roy Armes, was the only other cinema in the Arabic-speaking region, beside Egypt's, that could amount to a national cinema. Cinema in Lebanon has been in existence since the 1920s, and the country has produced over 500 films.
The number of films produced each year is small, and the industry is heavily dependent on foreign funding and international box office revenues due the limited size of the domestic market. Despite that, local films have recently enjoyed a degree of success: Where Do We Go Now? by director Nadine Labaki won the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, and was nominated as Lebanon’s entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
The first feature, The Adventures of Elias Mabruk, was filmed in Lebanon in 1929 and directed by Jordano Pidutti.In the Ruins of Baalbeck (1936) was the first sound film. It was a hit with audiences and profitable.
By the mid-1920s cinemas were common in Beirut, and some where used as a place for political gatherings. For example, in 1925, the Communist Party met at the Crystal Cinema in Beirut. Cinemas had become so popular that in 1931, students marched in a protest, demanding that prices of movie tickets be lowered. To compete against Hollywood, France decreed that all American films that were being imported to Lebanon be dubbed into French.
Documentaries were also being made during this period, but they were heavily censored by the French.
After Lebanon gained its independence from France, filmmakers began to examine local themes, especially rural life and folklore. During the post-independence period, Lebanon witnessed an economic boom that made its capital, Beirut, the financial center of the eastern Mediterranean. Lebanon's economic success, along with the presence of 38 banks and its open, multi-cultural and liberal society, made the country an alternative production choice to Egypt, which was at the time the center of filmmaking in the Arabic-speaking world. Additionally, "Lebanon had the region's best technical facilities" for film production. For the first half of the twentieth century, Lebanese cinema was very closely associated with Egyptian cinema. In addition to exporting numerous Lebanese actors and actresses, such as Nour Al Hoda and Sabah, belly dancers like Badia Massabni and producers like Assia Dagher, Lebanese distributors monopolized export of Egyptian film from 1930s – 1970s. One of the most successful directors of this period was Mohamed Selmane who was trained in Egypt and returned to Lebanon to make 30 films in 25 years.
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Wikipedia