Randa Chahal Sabag or Sabbagh (; December 11, 1953, in Tripoli – August 25, 2008 in Paris)"Award-winning filmmaker Randa Chahal Sabbagh passes away in Paris" by Jim Quilty. The Daily Star newspaper, Wednesday, August 27, 2008 was a Lebanese-Iraqi film director, producer and screenwriter.
Biography Born in 1953 in Tripoli, Lebanon, to an Iraqi father and a Lebanese mother, she studied film in Paris at the École Louis-Lumière during the 1970s. She died of cancer in Paris at the age of 54.
Career Chahal began her career with documentary films but shifted to feature films by the 1990s, though she retained 'a documentary-maker's nose for contentious subject matter'. She is reported to have said, "You discover in my films a common denominator. You notice that the camera only moves from right to left exactly like Arabic writing.""Randa Chahal": NOW Extra remembers the life and work of the great Lebanese filmmaker. By Louisa Ajami, NOW Staff, September 1, 2008 Randa Chahal
Chahal served as a jury member at the Venice 64th International Film Festival in the Opera Prima section.
Les Infidèles, a 1997 drama, is about the relationship between a French diplomat and a former Islamist who agrees to turn over the names of his colleagues if the French government will release an imprisoned friend.
Civilisées (A Civilized People) released in 1999, is a black comedy about the Lebanese Civil War, which killed at least 100,000 people.Lebanese Filmmaker: Randa Chahal Sabbagh by Mai Hoang, World Press Review, March 2004 issue (VOL. 51, No. 3) Lebanese Filmmaker: Randa Chahal Sabbagh Sabbagh deployed a 'vaudevillian cast' including foreign servants and philanthropists, visiting expatriates, militiamen and criminals – in a profane and dis-unified story mixing elements of absurdist plays. Some 40 minutes of the film was censored for its 'obscenity' and 'uncomplimentary representation of Lebanon during this particularly unsavory spell of its history'. It was subsequently screened only once, at the Beirut International Film Festival.
Chahal became noted in 2003 with The Kite, which received the Silver Lion at the 2003 Venice Film Festival and won several prestigious prizes and international acclaim; the Grand Special Jury Prize, the Cinema for Peace Award and the Laterna Magica Prize. Set in a low-key South Lebanese village, the film is about love, life, death and the absurdity of the Israeli occupation, seen from the perspective of a Druze family separated following the division of their village into two with one half annexed to Israel. The story evolves around an arranged marriage between Lamia, a 16-year-old Lebanese Druze girl, (played by Flavia Bechara) and her Israeli Druze cousin (played by Maher Bsaibes). The drama unfolds under the vigilant yet impotent Israeli-Lebanese border guards; one of whom is played by renowned Lebanese composer, actor and playwright Ziad Rahbani. The Kite is used 'as a metaphor for love and for life at the border', it explores, with depth and sometimes humor, 'the meaning of brides, of the hope they represent for divided families and, sometimes, for divided nations'.Film Journal International 2004A critique of 'The Syrian Bride' (Eran Riklis) with a praise to "The Kite", by Maria Garcia, Film Journal International, Sept. 2008
Filmography
YearTitleNotes2007Too Bad for ThemForthcoming2002Le Cerf-Volant (The Kite)Feature, 78 minutes Global Lens (Global Film Initiative), New York City, 2008 Prix de la bande Sonore, Bastia, 2004 Prix de TV5, Belgium, 2004 Silver Lion, Grand Prize of the Jury, Venice Film Festival, 2003 Prix de la Lanterne Magique, Venice Film Festival, 2003 Prix de la paix- Gillo Pontecorvo, Venice Film Festival, 2003 Prix international de la musique et du film, Auxerre, 20032000 Souha, survivre à l'enferDocumentary, 56 minutes Selection Fipa, 20011999Civilisées (A Civilized People)Feature, 97 minutes Nestor Almendros Prize, New York City, 2000 Official selection, Venice Film Festival, 19991997Les Infidèles (The Infidels)Drama, 85 minutes Official selection, Locarno, 19971995Nos Guerres ImprudentesDocumentary, 52 minutes Biennale Prize, Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, 1996 Official selection, Locarno, 1995 Rencontres Internationales, Paris, 19951991Ecrans de Sable (Screens of Sand)Feature, 90 minutes Official selection, Venice Film Festival, 1991 Director's Prize, Valencia Music Prize, la Baule1984Cheikh ImamDocumentary, 52 minutes1980Liban d'Autrefois (Lebanon Long Ago)Fiction, 12 minutes Jury Prize, Carthage Film Festival1978Pas à Pas (Step by Step)Documentary, 80 minutes Prize, Festival des Pays francophones de Namu Awards National Order of the Cedar (Officer), national decoration, Lebanon, 2003 Nestor Almendros Prize, New York City, 2000
References
External links
Website about Randa Chahal