Top 10 Things we liked

Director Ely Dagher’s Waves ’98 was the first Lebanese film to compete in the official competition at Cannes since 1991. It went on to win, landing the Palme d’Or in the official short film selection and launching the Brusselsbased Lebanese director and visual artist’s career into the stratosphere. An artistic exploration of the director’s relationship with Beirut, the film was the end result of two years of hard graft and contemplation and a surrealist blend of multiple styles of animation. inspired by an event that occurred during his inaugural trip to Brazil in 2007. It was, he said, the story of a Lebanese tourist adrift in the streets of Rio de Janeiro. The first campaign to effectively break the social taboo of not disclosing one’s mother’s name in public lest her name become a subject of shame and ridicule in public forums, Impact BBDO’s ‘Give mom back her name’ won an in augural glass Lion at Cannes. Launched by UN Women to coincide with Mother’s Day, the film asked a number of men what their mother’s name was. Simple and powerful. Lebanese band Mashrou’ Leila collaborated with Leo Burnett Beirut to create a unifying experience that brought together people who find freedom at night. Bold, outspoken and challenging social constraints, such work is more needed than ever, with the agency creating the album cover and concept for the band’s fourth album, Ibn El Leil (Son of the Night). In a bid to keep the protests in Lebanon alive, director Edwin Harb Kadri teamed up with a group of friends to shoot a handful of films supporting the ‘You Stink’ initiative over the course of a hectic and dramatic few days in August. The end results may not have been that refined, but they were important and had a clearly defined message of unity and duty.