STORIES AND ACTIVATIONS THAT CAUGHT OUR ATTENTION
Lebanese Internauts React to Filmmaker Ziad Doueiri’s Airport Arrest
Renowned French-lebanese director Ziad Doueiri had just set foot in Beirut for the premiere of his highly acclaimed, awardwinning new movie The Insult, starring Adel Karam, when he was arrested by authorities at the airport. His detention was shortly followed by a military questioning about his 2012 film The Attack which was partly filmed in Israel, and was the main trigger behind his surprising airport arrest. The incident was largely picked on by Lebanese Facebook users, who took to the platform to write statuses supporting the filmmaker and condemning his detention. Doueiri was later released without charge after his interrogation by the tribunal and both his Lebanese and French passports were returned to him. In his interviews with the media, he said his detention was clearly timed to disrupt the release of The Insult, which had just received remarkable praise from critics at the Venice Film Festival, prior to its Lebanese premiere.
Famous Superheroes Get a Striking Lebanese Makeover in New Animated Web Series
Have you ever wondered what your favorite superheroes would be like if they were Lebanese? Lebanese Superheroes, a new series of animated shorts created by multidisciplinary creative director, filmmaker, actor and comedian Elie Iskandar, tackles just that! Released on September 23, the first episode takes on the Lebanese Spiderman (Spiderman el Lebnene) who is seen smoking shisha on the roof of a building at the start of the episode before he gets caught up in the electricity wires and electrocuted while attempting to save a screaming woman nearby, all in the span of just 51 seconds of animation. With a distinct Lebanese feel, fun graphics and a succinct buildup, the series looks promising and worth keeping an eye on, notably in the absence of entertaining animated content of the sort on Lebanese social media today.