The cinema of Lebanon, according to film critic and historian Roy Armes, is the only other cinema in the Arabic-speaking region, beside Egypt's, that could amount to a national cinema.Armes, Roy. Arab Filmmakers of the Middle East: a Dictionary, page 26 Cinema in Lebanon has been in existence since the 1920s, and the country has produced more than 500 films.Harabi, Najib. Knowledge Intensive Industries: Four Case Studies of Creative Industries in Arab Countries, World Bank Project, 2009, page 16.
While there has been steady increase in film production since the end of the Lebanese Civil War, the number of films produced each year remains relatively small in comparison to what it used to be in the 1960s, and the industry remains heavily dependent on foreign funding, mainly European. The industry also remains reliant on international box office revenues due to the limited size of the domestic market.
Despite that, local films have enjoyed a degree of local and international success. Ziad Doueiry's The Insult was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Nadine Labaki's three features have been screened at the Cannes Film Festival, starting with Caramel in the Directors' Fortnight. Her second feature Where Do We Go Now? was screened in Un Certain Regard and later won the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival while her third feature, Capernaum, was nominated for a Palme D'Or and an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
History The history of film in Lebanon goes back to the 1890s. Two years after the Lumière Brothers publicly projected their first film in December 1895 (Paris, France), they began sending traveling representatives to tour different countries to show their movies. One of the cities that they visited was Lebanon's capital city, Beirut. Several years later, in 1909, the first movie theater was opened in the same city by the Pathé Frères. These events helped cultivate a film-viewing culture into the country. The first Lumiere operator who went to Lebanon was Alexandre Promio.
French Mandate
A sharp increase in the number of theaters was observed between 1923 and 1929.Kassir, Samir. Beirut, University of California Press; First edition (15 November 2010), page 267 By the end of the 1920s, cinemas were common in Beirut, and some were 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.
The first local film, The Adventures of Elias Mabruk, was made in 1929.Ginsberg, Terri and Chris Lippard. Historical Dictionary of Middle Eastern Cinema, Scarecrow Press (11 March 2010), page xxiii It was a silent film, directed by Jordano Pidutti. Pidutti was an Italian immigrant who worked as a chauffeur for the Sursock family before devoting his life to film. His first film, The Adventures of Elias Mabruk tells the story of a Lebanese emigrant who returns to Lebanon after a long absence in America in search of his family.Sadoul, George. The Cinema in the Arab Countries, Interarab Centre of Cinema & Television; First Edition in English edition, 1966 This tale of an emigrant's homecoming, captured nostalgic feelings in a country of emigrants and would become a recurrent theme in Lebanese cinema.Seigneurie, Ken. Standing by the Ruins: Elegiac Humanism in Wartime and Postwar Lebanon, Fordham University Press, 2011, page 96 Jordano Pidutti's second film was The Adventures of Abu Abed.Ames, Roy. Arab Filmmakers of the Middle East: A Dictionary, Indian University Press, Bloomington, IN 2010, page 110 The comedy is considered the first film made with Lebanese funding. The financier was Rachid Ali Chaaban, who was also the star of the film.Khatib, Lina. Lebanese Cinema: Imagining the Civil War and Beyond, I. B. Tauris, London 2008, page 22Kuhn, Annette and Guy Westwell. A Dictionary of Film Studies, Oxford University Press, London 2012, page 245
Lebanese women, like Assia Dagher and Mary Queeny, played pioneering roles in Egyptian cinema. In Lebanon, Herta Gargour, who managed the film studio, Luminar Films, is credited with establishing filmmaking in Lebanon after the silent era.Hillauer, Rebecca. Encyclopedia of Arab Women Filmmakers, The American University in Cairo Press; 1 edition (2 February 2006), page 132 In the Ruins of Baalbeck (1936), which was produced by Luminar Films, was the first sound film. It was a hit with audiences and profitable. The film, which was directed by Julio De Luca and Karam Boustany, depicted the love story of a local prince who falls in love with a foreigner. The film is considered the first Arab film produced entirely in an Arab country and featuring the Lebanese dialect.Ginsberg, Terri and Chris Lippard. Historical Dictionary of Middle Eastern Cinema, Scarecrow Press (11 March 2010), page xxiii
Ali Al-Ariss became the first Lebanese-born to direct a film on his own when he made The Rose Seller in 1940, which was followed by Planet of the Desert Princess
Documentaries were also being made during this period, but they were heavily censored by the French.
Post-Independence
After Lebanon gained its independence from France, filmmakers began to examine local themes, especially rural life and folklore.Armes, Roy. Arab Filmmakers of the Middle East: a Dictionary, page 7 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.Chaudhuri, Shohini. Contemporary World Cinema: Europe, the Middle East, East Asia and South Asia, page 60 Fully equipped studios were set up in 1952, such as Haroun Studio owned by Michel Haroun and Al-Arz StudioKhatib, Lina. Lebanese Cinema: Imagining the Civil War and Beyond, I. B. Tauris, London 2008, page 22-23
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.
The first Lebanese film to be featured In Selection at Cannes Film Festival Georges Nasser's Ila Ayn? (English Title: Where To?) in 1958.Ham, Anthony. Middle East, Lonely Planet 2012, page 411 Despite its success abroad and having been screened at numerous film festivals, such as in Moscow and Beijing, the movie theaters in Lebanon hesitated to screen the film, and it only received a limited screening in Cinema Opera. For its sixty-year anniversary, the film was screened again in its restored print version as part of the Cannes Classics events in 2017. George Nasser's work has been more appreciated in recent years, and the filmmaker, who taught at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts has been showered with accolades, including at the Tripoli Film Festival, which was held in his honor in 2017.
Co-productions with Egypt and Syria were common in this period, which was considered the "Golden Age" of the Lebanese film industry. Additionally, Lebanese producers from 1945 up to 1951 played an influential role in the first stages of production of Iraqi cinema.
The Golden Age The film industry continued to prosper in the 1960s. After Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the film industry in Egypt in 1963, many private producers, distributors and directors, including Youssef Chahine, moved to Lebanon.Gugler, Josef. Ten Arab Filmmakers: Political Dissent and Social Critique, Indiana University Press, Bloomington 2015, page 103 The migration of film production to Beirut ushered a Golden Age, making Lebanon the film set for almost all Egyptian movies and establishing the Lebanese film industry as the second largest in the Arab world. Beirut rivaled Cairo's dominance of Arab filmmaking, and even briefly replaced it as the center for Arab filmmaking;Kiarostami, Abbas. The Cinema of North Africa and the Middle East, Wallflower Press, London 2007, page 160 however, films produced in the sixties, for the most part, lacked a sense of national identity and were merely commercial films, targeting a pan-Arab audience. For instance, Lebanese filmmaker, Mohammed Selmane made a series of Bedouin-themed films, like Bedouin in Paris (1964) and Bedouin in Rome (1965), both starring Samira Tewfik and targeting not only local but also Syrian, Iraqi, Jordanian and Gulf audiences.Leamen, Oliver. Companion Encyclopedia of Middle Eastern and North African Film, Routledge London, 2001, page 375 Mohamed Selmane, who was trained in Egypt and returned to Lebanon to make 30 films in 25 years, was one of the most successful directors of this period.
The musicals of the Rahbani Brothers that starred Fairuz were an exception to the films that lacked a national identity. The Rahbani films were centered around nostalgic themes of life in Mount Lebanon villages.Stone, Christopher Reed. Popular culture and nationalism in Lebanon: the Fairouz and Rahbani Nation, pages 75–76 Nostalgia was a common theme in Lebanese film since 1929. While many films in the sixties were filmed in the Egyptian vernacular to cater to the large Egyptian market, the Rahbani films were filmed in the Lebanese dialect. The Seller of Rings (Arabic: بياع الخواتم) (1965), set in a village and displaying folkloristic elements, was an adaption of one of their operettas to the screen. Another Rahbani film, Safar Barlik, which was set in 1912, depicted Lebanon's struggle against the Ottoman occupation. The film became a staple rerun on Lebanese television, especially on Independence Day.Frishkopf, Michael. Music and Media in the Arab World, page 98
Giuseppe Vincenti launched Italia Film in Beirut in 1962, turning it into one of the region’s biggest independent film distributors, and in 1993 becoming Disney’s key West Asian partner.
There were other exceptions like the auteur films of George Nasser and Youssef Maalouf. Georges Nasser's second feature, The Small Stranger was also selected for Cannes in 1962. Youssef Maalouf adapted to film Kahlil Gibran's novel, The Broken Wings in 1962.Seigneurie, Ken. Standing by the Ruins: Elegiac Humanism in Wartime and Postwar Lebanon, Fordham University Press, 2011, page 97 Prints of the film The Broken Wings were believed to have been destroyed during the war, but one was found after the war stored in a church, and the film, starring stage actress Nidal Al-Askhar, was restored.
Lebanon became a filming location for international productions. For example, in 1965, Val Guest's Where the Spies Are, starring David Niven and Françoise Dorléac, was filmed in Beirut.Kassir, Debevoise, and Fisk. Beirut, page 407 Twenty-Four Hours to Kill, starring Mickey Rooney, and Secret Agent Fireball, starring Richard Harrison, were also filmed in Beirut the same year. The following year in 1966, the German director, Manfred R. Köhler, filmed his film, Agent 505: Death Trap in Beirut. George Lautner's La grande sauterelle was also filmed in Beirut in 1967. Rebus, starring Ann-Margret was filmed on location at the Casino du Liban in 1969. While Honeybaby, Honeybaby was shot in 1974 in Beirut, the producers of The Man with the Golden Gun, which was partially set in Beirut, decided not to film in the Lebanese capital due to the burgeoning political problems.