Head of programme, Alfilm, Arab Film Festival of Berlin; curator, Safar Film Festival
Rabih El-Khoury’s ambition to shine a light on Arab cinema for international audiences has taken him far from his home country of Lebanon, where his programming career began in troubled times.
“In 2006, I was working with Hania Mroué and a passionate group of people to open the first Lebanese arthouse cinema in Beirut,” says El-Khoury. “On July 12 [2006] just after Metropolis Cinema opened, everything stopped when Israel invaded in the south.”
At that time he was also working on Beirut Cinema Days at Beirut DC (now known as Aflamuna), which became the first cultural event to happen in Beirut when the war ended in September 2006. “Hania Mroué and Eliane Raheb introduced me to independent Arab cinema, films that are about me and my identity,” says El-Khoury. “These two events changed my life.”
Rabih is currently head of programme at Alfilm, the Arab Film Festival of Berlin, collaborates with Afrikamerica in Berlin (a festival for contemporary African cinema), and curates Safar Film Festival at the Arab British Centre in the UK and Arab Cinema Week for Cinema Akil in Dubai. “I am passionate about Arab cinema but also a big fan of the global south cinema,” he says. “I love to be introduced to the new currents coming from African cinema, Latin America and Asian cinema.”
Palestine was the main focus of this year’s edition of Alfilm, which opened with Lina Soualem’s documentary Bye Bye Tiberias. But he acknowledges that cultural discussions and institutions have felt under siege in Germany in the current febrile atmosphere. “Through art and culture, we can understand the world better, and in these difficult times we can’t put the situation in Palestine aside while working on an Arab cinema programme,” says El-Khoury.
Contact: Rabih El-Khoury
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