A touch of hope with music and cinematography

Beirut Documentary Film Festival kicks off with Beethoven

The festival comes to wipe out some of the city's pain after the disaster of August 4.

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Beethoven's Ninth Symphony breaks the wall of death in Beirut, announcing the opening of the Documentary Art Film Festival, which is rising from a dying state, due to the worst financial, social and economic crisis in Lebanon.

And as dancing over his wounds, and as an expression of adherence to hope and creativity in a time of isolation, the responsible for the Beirut Artistic Documentary Film Festival, Alice Magghab, chose to open the sixth edition of this annual event, last Thursday evening, with two works on the German composer Ludwig van Beethoven.

The festival is the first cinematic event to be organized in Beirut since the Corona pandemic, and it was held inside the Mono Theater hall in Ashrafieh, which was damaged by the port explosion that killed 200 people and destroyed large areas of Beirut.

Despite the explosion of the fourth of last August, this festival comes to erase from the city some of its pain, and deposited between its walls, which were close to death, a touch of hope accompanied by music and cinematic works.

"What is required today is to find solutions, it is easy to cry and collapse, but together we can restore the soul to the wounded Lebanon and its venerable capital," Maghabgab said.

The two documentaries centered on Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which reflects the tougher expression of beauty, love and the will to live.

Maria (60 years old) said: “How beautiful it is that the author was blind when he offered his soul to the tunes, and gave these tunes a soul. This is how we want Beirut to be on the level of the soul's tune despite the wound.”

She added: “I came to the Mono Theater where the event is on foot. My home is far away, but I wanted to celebrate life and my wounded capital, and support Alice Maghbegh in her insistence on planting hope and spreading culture again in our sorrowful souls. I took pictures of the cracked buildings and others that stood in the way of work. "I am talking to strangers in the theater with respect for social distancing ... I want to return to life."

As for Pamela El Khoury (35 years old), she said that the two documentaries “Beethoven's Symphony Ninth: A Symphony for the World” produced in 2020 and “What follows from the Ninth Symphony” produced in 2013 “translated the legendary work in two different styles, as seen by the most important leaders of the orchestra in the world, from the author. The Chinese Tan Du to the English Gabriel Prokofiev, all the way to the Greek-Russian Theodore Corinthias, is one work with more than one vision. ”

The sixth edition of the festival appears in partnership with international sponsors and directors. The festival includes 20 films from Lebanon, America, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, and other countries.

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