Category Archives: Entertainment

Lebanese Ely Dagher’s Waves ’98 Wins Best Short Movie Award At Cannes 2015

Ely Makhoul Cannes 2015 Waves '98

About four weeks ago, I wrote about a very promising short movie by Lebanese director Ely Dagher which was nominated for Best Short Movie at this year’s Cannes Festival (link).

The short film is an attempt by Ely Dagher to come to terms with living and growing up in Beirut, while working out of Belgium: the movie is about his adolescence years as a Lebanese lost in his own capital.  As I said before, the trailer made it seem extremely promising: it was unlike any Lebanese movie or short film I had seen before, and I had high hopes.

Well, Cannes agrees with me.

Ely Dagher Waves '98 Cannes Win

Ely Dagher just became the first Lebanese to win a major award at Cannes. By having his movie win, Ely Dagher beat out seven other nominees from seven other countries that probably cared less about their production than the Lebanese government ever did.

By being nominated in the first place, Ely Dagher beat out 4550 other short films that were submitted from all across the world. And today, I feel proud and I suppose so should you.

Let Ely Dagher’s win be a testament to Lebanese talents everywhere who can make it big, like he did, when given the chance, the funds, the backing, when they are allowed to pursue their vision beyond the confines of a Lebanese society that is so comfortable in what it knows that it never ventures out of its comfort zone, a society that squashes its own arts as forever cliches and doesn’t let its own artists truly express what they can do in fear of not being commercial enough.

I congratulate Ely Dagher for winning. Here’s hoping Waves ’98 makes it big at next year’s Oscars as well. Hopefully it’ll become the first Lebanese production to win that golden statuette as well.

 

Waves ’98: The Lebanese Short Film Nominated For A Palme D’Or At Cannes 2015

Ely Dagher Waves '98

4550 short films from across 100 countries were submitted to the Short Films category at Cannes this year. Only 8 made the selection to be in the running for the Palme D’Or. And a Lebanese short film, Waves ’98, by Ely Dagher is one of them.

It has been a long, long time that Lebanon has had any movies featured this prominently at Cannes – Nadine Labaki’s offerings were not given the same treatment. This is the first time in over 24 years that a Lebanese film made the selection at Cannes this way, not since 1991 when Maroun Baghdadi’s “Hors La Vie” was nominated, and ended up winning the Jury Prize..

Ely Dagher is a young Lebanese filmmaker living in Brussels. As someone who was torn between life in Belgium and life in Lebanon, he ended up writing Waves ’98 as a way to come to terms with what living and growing up in Beirut meant to him. The work took two years.

I haven’t seen the movie, but the trailer shows it to be very different from anything Lebanese that has been offered to us in the past few years. In fact, the feel of it reminded me a bit of the very, very good (and very traitorous?) movie “Waltz With Bashir,” albeit with a different subject matter I’d assume.

It doesn’t matter if Ely Dagher’s Waves ’98 wins on May 24th at Cannes or not. The fact that he managed to be nominated out of 4550 other submitted movies is triumphant enough for him and Lebanese talents everywhere, when given room to grow beyond the confines of cliches that they are required to be limited to while trying to make it in Lebanon.

The nomination of Waves ’98 shows that when not limited by subject matter, and when not restricted by local taboos, Lebanese talents can make a dent in fields that we’ve come to brush off as beyond us.

I contrast this with a play I watched recently in Beirut called “Venus,” which had a brilliant script, beyond brilliant acting and broke Lebanese taboos like no other play I had seen before. Venus worked because it didn’t care about sensibilities. Waves ’98 isn’t necessarily within the same context, but it being different puts it in the category of works of art pushing the boundaries of our Lebanese artistic repertoire.

Instead of talking on and on about movies such as Vitamin, and beyond subpar offerings by Lebanese cinema in recent years, we should at least give the ambitious and talented Ely Dagher and his movie the credit they deserve for making a dent, for showing that Lebanese filmmakers can accomplish such feats.

Congratulations, and my outmost respect.

Check out the trailer:

Hiba Tawaji Didn’t Lose; The Voice Lost Hiba Tawaji

 

I was walking around New York City yesterday, totally trying to mind my own business by checking Facebook and trying not to feel dwarfed by the high rises around me when my Lebanese friends broke some terribly heartbreaking news to me, as I stood there in Times Square.

It was one of those Facebook moments where you get bad news you’re supposed to get over a phone call via a status instead, sort of like when I learned that a relative died because someone decided to post a picture of her with a RIP caption before they had told everyone else. But this, this was worse.

For lack of better analogy, the news I received on Facebook yesterday was devastating, gut-wrenching and so haunting it might as well be my own version of 9/11. How could it be? It can’t be.

Hiba Tawaji, the Lebanese that showed France how it is to actually sing in French, was no more on the amateur talent show The Voice. But that didn’t make sense? How could Hiba Tawaji lose? How could the person that is now teaching the entire world what singing actually consists of end up with such a heinous outcome? How could the country that gave the world music, art and the alphabet be so terribly offended?

It must have been a conspiracy. Those French people are clearly obviously out there to get us, poor gullible Lebanese whose only fault in this world was being born in the most wonderful, most loved and most vied for country in the world.  Clearly, those French were jealous. Clearly, they had a thing against us. 4 Lebanese candidates on 4 seasons of France’s The Voice are now all martyrs to the Lebanese artistic cause of becoming nobodies in Western Europe. Clearly I wasn’t gonna sit down and be quiet about this.

There are two things that make me proud of Lebanon today: hummus and Hiba Tawaji. The latter losing was a stab in the heart of my nationalistic pride. How are we not protesting this serious violation of our basic and most fundamental right as Lebanese people to be the shit of the shit at every single location where a shit can be shat? This is unacceptable. No, scratch that. This is not only unacceptable, this is worthy of a UN tribunal, more pressing than the STL, to investigate the serious backwater works that are going into this serious breach of Lebanese sovereignty taking place inside the studios of TF1.

So because I’m a masochist, I decided to watch the video of Hiba losing. I swear, that was a worse experience to my mental health than seeing all the mutilated bodies of Syrian children. I am scarred for life. I wept for Hiba. I cut for Hiba. I hung a Lebanese flag around my neck and walked around Brooklyn for Hiba. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to bring back the pride I lost with Hiba being so wrongly targeted… #JeSuisIba.

TL;DR? Hiba Tawaji lost. The country is mourning. And this is all too heartbreaking and tough to process. Or maybe not. Shit happens in talent shows. It was fun while it lasted, now let’s look at more serious things, like being interested in drunk driving and Haifa Wehbe’s English career.

Breaking Down Haifa Wehbe’s Brilliant “Breathing You In”

Haifa Wehbe dropped an English song. Such breaking news! It’s such big news in fact that it reached me all the way in the United States while I purposefully ignored anything and everything Lebanese (sorry, not sorry).

So I sat down and decided to breathe in – for lack of better word – that outstanding piece of art, the kind that will surely break the Taylor-Swift-saturated-American-pop-scene and make sure they remember that Lebanon is the country that created music, the English language, techno beats, Interstellar travel and the idea behind the movie Gravity.

I figured I’d break down the video into its components, because why the hell not? Serves for more entertaining news that bitching about the political situation or the sudden mass worry about this odd phenomenon called drunk driving. Yes, I got that too. Sigh.

So I loaded the video in 1080p (HA!) and here we go:

Haifa Wehbe Breathing You In - 1

 

Who the hell are Mostafa Sorour and Tarik Freitken? And what is World Music?

Haifa Wehbe Breathing You In - 2

Who the hell is Casper and why do we care?

Haifa Wehbe Breathing You In - 3

And NASA! Do you think they’d sue for using their logo? What does Haifa Wehbe have to do with NASA? Why are we in space? Why are there astronauts? 

Haifa Wehbe Breathing You In - 4

How did we go from space to a barn. Isn’t this haram?

Haifa Wehbe Breathing You In - 5

 *puppy eyes.*

Haifa Wehbe Breathing You In - 6

“Is pressing this much against that wooden pole enough to make my boobs look bigger while I “sing?”

Haifa Wehbe Breathing You In - 7

That “take me as I am” line sure comes in handy at this point, doesn’t it? *moans.*

Haifa Wehbe Breathing You In - 9

Wait! How are we dancing in the desert now? Is there a checklist for exotic videos we are going through? Space, check. Desert, check. Strip club next? 

Haifa Wehbe Breathing You In - 10

 

Fastest wardrobe change ever? I guess they figured the previous one wasn’t skin-revealing enough?

Haifa Wehbe Breathing You In - 11

Oh look we’re in space now. I can’t keep track. And why is Haifa not wearing a space suit? Is it because it doesn’t show enough skin? 

Haifa Wehbe Breathing You In - 13

Back to the desert. It’ll be hard to tell foreigners that Lebanon doesn’t have deserts after this. My life is ruined. 

Haifa Wehbe Breathing You In - 14

Is she dancing? What is she doing? 

Haifa Wehbe Breathing You In - 15

Is he finally taking her as she is in the barn? Kinky? No. Lebanese don’t do that. *shakes head.*

Haifa Wehbe Breathing You In - 16

When you’re bored, just swim in space. Right? Let Haifa come to you and save you. 

Haifa Wehbe Breathing You In - 17

And then get surrounded by men touching you in green and flowery fields. 

Haifa Wehbe Breathing You In - 18

She wasn’t satisfied, so she went solo. *wink.*

Haifa Wehbe Breathing You In - 19

Barely-there clothing! Break the Arab internet and Western stereotypes, Haifa! She hasn’t looked better though. Damn.

Haifa Wehbe Breathing You In - 20

I can’t wait to read all the Arab tabloids talking about how she highlighted her pubic area with this. 

Haifa Wehbe Breathing You In - 21

I don’t get the purpose of this interlude. 

Haifa Wehbe Breathing You In - 22

Or why this guy is still flying in space.

Haifa Wehbe Breathing You In - 23

I bet she’s trying to recreate that infamous venus picture, right? Bring her a fig leave now.

Haifa Wehbe Breathing You In - 24

Aww. Haifa cries! 

Haifa Wehbe Breathing You In - 25

He came…. alive.

Haifa Wehbe Breathing You In - 26Who is this guy again?

Oh wait, there was a song among that video? So then I went and listened to it again in an attempt to get the lyrics. What kind of brilliance, people? It’s like an American sexually-charged song, but without intercourse. Because this is Arabia and there’s no way anyone can sing about sex here. Get your minds out of the gutters! Only a Lebanese superstar can pull off sex in such a sex-less way.

Love me now,

Love me past the end of the time,

Turn me up,

Find my frequency,

You’re breathing me,

Take me as I am,

Give me a sign,

Show me that our love is one

Is it me or are these lyrics so expressive and ground-breaking? Never has any composer written such wonderful phrases in song before. Bring me their names now!

Cause I’m just breathing, breathing you in

You get me started when you begin

Just breathing you in

Just breathing you in

Just breathing you in

Just breathing you in

Just breathing you in, in, in, in, in

Just breathing you in

Just breathing you in

Just breathing you in

Just breathing you in, in, in, in, in

Breathing you in, in, in, in

Breathing you in, in, in, in

Breathing you in, in, in, in

Breathing you in, in, in, in

Breathing you in, in, in, in

Breathing you in, in, in, in

Breathing you in, in, in, in

What a chorus! What kind of brilliance? What kind of tempo? One sentence repeated sixteen times. I can’t even.

Loud and clear I hear you,

I feel no one when I’m with you,

I feel closer when we’re far,

We are weightless, care-free love

Weightless, care-free, close when far… these are just new ideas introduced to the English language that should be trademarked. Get on it. Don’t let Taylor Swift be the only one trademarking her lyrics especially when you’ve got this.sick.beat. going on.

Cause I’m just breathing, breathing you in

You get me started when you begin

Just breathing you in

Just breathing you in

Just breathing you in

Just breathing you in

Just breathing you in, in, in, in, in

Cause I’m just breathing, breathing you in

You get me started when you begin

Just breathing you in

Just breathing you in

Just breathing you in

Just breathing you

Just breathing you in, in, in, in, in

Just breathing you in,

Just breathing you in,

I feel you breathing,

Breathing you in, in, in, in

Breathing you in, in, in, in

Breathing you in, in, in, in

Breathing you in, in, in, in

Breathing you in, in, in, in

Breathing you in, in, in, in

Breathing you in, in, in, in

I’m breathing you in, in, in, in.

That same sentence repeated 21 times. Is there a record here we should be aware of? And seriously, how beautiful are these lyrics? Only in Lebanon. Going back to Edward Maya days all the way in 2015? Bring back these beats, Haifa.

I wonder, were the lyricists writing this getting goosebumps with each pen stroke? I sure was. I bet they felt like geniuses with every line they wrote down and every comparison they added. Damn. How innovative of them.

I’m worried though. All that breathing – desert dust, air dust, other kinds of dust – can be life threatening. Did Haifa get tuberculosis?

You’ll have to wait to blast this out of your 1980s BMW 320. It won’t be available on iTunes before April 21st. Bummer. I really wanted to show those New Yorkers what our artists can pull off and let them breath it in, in, in, in, in.

Screen Shot 2015-04-16 at 12.57.59 AM

I suppose it says enough when a song like this will probably end up being played on Lebanese radio instead of offerings by Lebanese artists who have been trying to make it for years, such as Postcards or The Wanton Bishops. Don’t let people convince you this is worthwhile, or that the “good beat” makes up for the fact that this is trash.

Lebanese stars should stop wasting their money on trying to make it internationally especially when they’re buying horrible songs that were probably written by someone with basic comprehension of the English language, masquerading it as “in” with some fancy beats and sultry delivery.

No, just no.

 

Alt-J Coming To Lebanon This Summer At The Byblos Festival

Alt-J

Your prayers have been answered, indie music Lebanese fans, for this year’s concerts are no longer just about the music you run away from. Rejoice!

Since you, my dearest readers, deserve a bit of happy news every now and then on here, I am leaking your way some major information that was shared my way. Yes, the Byblos Festival will be more than John Legend and The Script. Yes, you don’t need to keep worrying that it’s just too *mainstream* this year.

British band Alt-J will be coming to Lebanon for a concert this summer! It’s confirmed. The date will be announced soon. So for those who were in a state of panic, you can now relax (and get your money ready) because I’m sure this leak will brighten your day.

For those who don’t know them, Alt-J rose to prominence in 2012 with the album “An Awesome Wave.” Their latest offering, This Is All Yours, released in 2014, managed to top the UK albums chart. Their most famous song worldwide is “Tessellate,” which was covered by Ellie Goulding later on.

The song they rose to prominence with, however, is “Breezeblocks” which has clocked so far over 50 million hits on YouTube:

One thing to be said about all of this is kudos to the Byblos Festival for bringing high-profile talents to Lebanon year after year. Along with Alt-J, they are bringing John Legend who had the past year’s biggest hits in “All Of Me” as well as materializing a concert by “The Script” who were long-rumored to be coming.

In making sure that it is always of international caliber, Byblos Festival has consistently been a highlight of every summer we’ve had in Lebanon. And with all of this to the backdrop of arguably the country’s most touristic city, Jbeil, it becomes something you can’t not be proud of.

My hat goes off to all the effort that goes into making this successful and news-worthy every single year.

Update:

August 18th’s the date.

Alt-J Lebanon August 18