The films will be screened on August 14 and 15 at Warehouse 68, Alserkal Avenue in Al Quoz.
Dubai’s independent cinema house Cinema Akil has announced Lebanon disaster relief screenings programme to raise funds for victims of the Beirut blast that rocked the city last week.
Films by Nadine Labaki and Ziad Doueiri have been chosen to be screened as part of Cinema Akil’s fundraising programme.
The films will be screened at Warehouse 68, Alserkal Avenue in Al Quoz.
The programme has been launched in partnership with MENA distributor Front Row Filmed Entertainment and the Kuwait National Cinema Company. The money raised from ticket sales of the screenings will be donated to the Lebanese Red Cross.
On August 14, Doueiri’s drama film West Beirut will be screened at 2 pm. The film revolves around a 15-year-old scamp, Tarek, and his friends Omar and May during a religious war in Beirut in 1975. The war – a major episode in their young lives – grants them limitless, much-desired freedom. Suddenly the disintegrating system allows them to experience with far greater intensity life’s rituals of initiation: friendship and love.
On August 15, Where Do We Go Now? by Nadine Labaki will be screened at 1:45 pm. Set against the backdrop of a war-torn country, the film tells the heart-warming tale of a group of women’s determination to protect their isolated, mine-encircled community from the pervasive and divisive outside forces that threaten to destroy it from within.
“Both West Beirut and Where Do We Go Now? are reflections of Lebanese society that through unity, work to overcome the conditions of volatile political geography,” said Front Row CEO Gianluca Chakra. “These films also carry in them the scars felt by Lebanese that have lived and survived the war.” Chakra adds: “I am part Lebanese and spent a large chunk of my youth in school and university in Beirut. Same applies to some of our team. The place is near and dear to our hearts. Seeing the damage from that explosion truly affected us all at Front Row and these screenings with our close partners Cinema Akil are a way for me to give back to my home country. I’m confident in Lebanon’s people and in their ability to always rise above tragedy and move forward.”