Eliane Raheb

Eliane Raheb (Arabic: إليان الراهب; is a documentary filmmaker from Lebanon. With her 2012 film Layali Bala Noom (Sleepless Nights), Raheb made her debut as a feature-length film director.

Early life and education

Eliane Raheb was born in 1972 in Lebanon, where spent most of her youth during the Lebanese civil war. She said “I remember moving from one place to the next in search of shelter, like everyone else at the time. We lived through hard and painful moments. Despite that, we prevailed: we went to school and carried on with our lives”. “I will never forget the days of social harmony, when everyone would help the other”. She was 19 when the war ended, leaving her with unanswered questions. Raheb's grandfather owned a theatre in Zahleh, Lebanon, that helped spark her interest in film. Her family would take refuge in her grandfathers theatre during the war where they would watch films. She began acting in theatre, working with Roger Assaf. Alongside acting, she began writing and directing in theatre which helped her realize her true passion of film directing. She then transitioned from theatre to film where she studied at IESAV in Beirut to become a filmmaker.

Career

Early career

Raheb's directorial debut came the release of her short film The Last Screening, which revolves around the relationship between a girl and her grandfather's theater.

For example, she details in her 2002 documentary So Near Yet So Far how the Intifada squashed the hopes of visiting neighbouring countries for children living Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan.

Suicide (2003) documents the Lebanese response to the American invasion of Iraq, depicting both the intelligentsia who felt it pointless, and those in Lebanon who fell for Iraqi propaganda and joined the fight.

With her 2008 documentary This Is Lebanon, Raheb captures the reemergence of violence in Lebanon. The film follows the resistance against the establishment and the patriarchal family structure, which Raheb purports are partly to blame for the political and religious sectarianism in her country. This Is Lebanon was broadcast internationally on television by ARTE, ZDF, and Al Jadeed.

Sleepless Nights

In her 2012 documentary Sleepless Nights, Raheb explores the blanket amnesty granted to all those who committed political crimes during the Lebanese civil war and how it affected both the victims and the perpetrators of these crimes. To that end, Sleepless Nights chronicles the lives of Assaad Chaftari, an ex-intelligence officer who was directly responsible for many casualties during his tenure as a high-ranking member of the Christian right wing militia during the Lebanese Civil War, and Maryam Saiidi, whose son Maher, a young communist fighter, went missing in 1982. Raheb went about Sleepless Nights inspired by the character of Assaad Chaftari, she then began meeting with him and “interrogating him” as she put it.

Reception

When Sleepless Nights was first screened, it had trouble getting large-scale distribution in Lebanon due to its documentarian nature. Instead the film was screened in three Lebanese theatres through individual efforts on behalf of Raheb and her supporters. A report on the Lebanese TV channel “Future” criticized Sleepless nights calling it a failure for having less than 700 views within one week of its release. However, the critique was proven wrong as the film received great reception and was screened on various platforms such as Al-Jazeera Documentary and Al-Jadeed.

Moreover, Sleepless Nights received a warm reception from critics. Jay Weissberg, writing for Variety, said, "It's hard to find a Lebanese film that doesn’t focus on the bloody civil war. And yet it is even harder to find a film that treats this topic better than Sleepless Nights."

Viola Shafik, author of Arab Cinema: History and Cultural Identity, referred to Raheb's association Beirut DC as a "backbone of Lebanese alternative film art".

Raheb said: “ When a film is released, it is no longer mine, it becomes the peoples’. They mights hate it or love it, but what is important is that it stirs up a storm of conversation.”

Those Who Remain

Her latest documentary Those Who Remain was screened in more than 20 festivals and received 5 awards, such as the Special Jury Prize Muhr Feature award at the 13th annual dubai film festival. Those Who Remain explores the life of Haykal, a 60 years old Christian farmer who lives in a complex geo-political spot in North Lebanon, a few kilometers away from Syria, and who is struggling to stay in his land, amidst all sectarian tensions, fear and hopelessness. Raheb says “I wanted to give the land a political, not only geographical, meaning”.

Other work

Alongside her career as a filmmaker, Raheb also supports the Lebanese film community by teaching filmmaking at the St. Joseph University in Beirut and being active in cultural organizations in Lebanon.

One of Eliane Raheb's arguably biggest contributions to Arab cinema is Beirut DC. Founded by Raheb in 1999, Beirut DC is a cultural association whose objectives include providing training and networking opportunities to independent filmmakers while simultaneously documenting and promoting their work in Lebanon through co-production and screenings. She has been the artistic director of Beirut Cinema Days film festival for 6 editions. Ayam Bayrut al-sinim'iya, counts a touring Arab Film Week among her association's most effective cultural initiatives.

Together with producer Nizar Hassan, who produced Sleepless Nights, Raheb founded Free Arabs (2011-2012), a documentary film project that was both transnational and multimedia. They produced 160 short films as part of this project, all of which were by young filmmakers emanating from seven countries that took part in the Arab Spring. All 160 short documentaries, which detail the day-to-day lives of Arabs during the revolutions, were aired online.

Raheb's Lebanese-based production company Itar Productions, is active throughout the Arab world.

Style and themes

Raheb has displayed an interest in the Lebanese experience across her filmography. Commenting on her own work, Raheb stated, "‘In the absence of a film industry structure in Lebanon, short films have performed the invaluable task of chronicling life in Lebanon after the war. They provide the material for a potential cinema." Eliane believes that cinema is an integral tool that should be used in order to unravel Lebanon's past. She says “If we don’t talk about the past, we cannot move on to the future”.

Her childhood during the civil war largely influenced her work. “I never understood the little wars within the big one” Said Eliane. Thus, she went on to answer her own questions through film: “The war lingers in my head, and I always search for it traces. So I wanted to ask my questions on the screen”. She began her socio-political documentary work around the year 2000.

When asked about her objectivity in “Sleepless Nights” Eliane responded: “In the field of cinema, objectivity is a big lie, I tried to be as objective as possible, that is why I did not make a film about the Lebanese civil war, rather I made a film about two people who lived through the war. I began from that reality, to tell their story, not mine. This film is not a biased journalistic report, rather it is a creative work that identifies with the human: her emotions, fears, and dreams.” Her story began with an interest in Assaad's character. Through her research and consistent interviews with him, Eliane uncovered the two conflicting narratives that we see in the film, and hence the multifold story of Maryam and Assaad is born.

Because of its political nature, Raheb's work is largely documentary. However Raheb describes her method as such: “Then I learned, again, through documentary, how to bring back the fiction……. so I am dealing with an issue that is important, but I am having real characters, instead of having actors, but if I want to be cinematic, I have to deal with them as if they are characters in a film… …I have to give them the time to develop their own story with a dramatical line”.

Awards and nominations

Raheb's documentary This Is Lebanon received the Excellency Award at the Yamagata film festival in Japan.

At the Mumbai Film Festival, Raheb's film Suicide garnered second place.

Sight and Sound included the film in its list of the 25 best international films of 2013. It also won a number of competitions, including the human rights prize at the Cine Invisible in Bilbao, a competition for documentary film at the Birds Eye View Festival in London, and the full-length film competition at the LAIFF Festival in Argentina.

Her film Those Who Remain won Special Jury Prize Muhr Feature award at the 13th annual Dubai film festival.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1995	The Last Screening	director	short film
1996	Encounter	director	short film
2001	So Near Yet So Far	director	documentary
2003	Suicide	director	documentary
2008	This is Lebanon	director, writer	documentary
2012	Sleepless Nights	director, executive producer and researcher	documentary
2016	Those Who Remain	director, producer	documentary

External links

Eliane Raheb on IMDB