Culture

Cabriolet Film Festival 2025 Launches with Bold New Vision and Nationwide Reach

This is Beirut 26/05 12:35 - Reading : 1 minute(s)

Baalbeck Lebanon Saïda Byblos Cabriolet Film Festival

Lebanon’s beloved Cabriolet Film Festival is back for its 16th edition, launching June 6–8, 2025, with renewed energy and a powerful message: connecting Lebanese regions through the love of cinema. Organized by Laboratoire d’Art, the festival expands beyond Beirut this year, bringing open-air short film screenings to more than a dozen ...

Marcel Ophuls, Legendary Filmmaker Who Shattered French WWII Myths

This is Beirut 26/05 10:10 - Reading : 3 minute(s)

Cinema Documentary Culture Art Marcel Ophuls

Oscar-winning filmmaker Marcel Ophuls, who blew the lid off the myth that France resisted its World War II Nazi occupiers in The Sorrow and the Pity, has died aged 97, his family said Monday. Ophuls, who was the son of renowned German Jewish director Max Ophuls, "died peacefully on May 24", his grandson Andreas-Benjamin Seyfert said in a ...

Behind the Scenes'Just an Accident:' The Iranian Film That Won Over Cannes and Took Home the Palme d’Or

Bélinda Ibrahim 25/05 18:30 - Reading : 7 minute(s)

Cannes 2025 Iran Cinema Cannes Film Festival Jafar Panahi

From the very start of this 78th edition, the tone was set. The official poster, showing a couple running along a beach, taken from Claude Lelouch’s A Man and a Woman, said it all: a nod to romance, but also to the familiar. This year, Cannes offered both comfort and disruption. Comfort, in the form of familiar faces: Claude Lelouch, Daniel ...

"It's in our blood": How Vietnam Made the Latin Alphabet Its Own

This is Beirut 25/05 13:25 - Reading : 3 minute(s)

Vietnam Calligraphy Culture Latin

At a calligraphy class in Hanoi, Hoang Thi Thanh Huyen slides her brush across the page to form the letters and tonal marks of Vietnam’s unique modern script — Quoc Ngu — in part a legacy of French colonial rule. The history of romanised Vietnamese, or Quoc Ngu, links the arrival of the first Christian missionaries, colonisation by the ...

SpotlightCannes 2025: A Closing Full of Tears, Power and Purpose

Marie-Christine Tayah 25/05 10:10 - Reading : 5 minute(s)

Cannes Film Festival Cannes2025 Cinema France Culture Closing Ceremony

After ten intense days, Cannes brought down the curtain in an atmosphere of artistic elevation. It was a festival that felt political, raw and deeply human—where voices rose to fill the silence onscreen. As always, the iconic “Aquarium” piece from The Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns played before each red carpet entrance, ...

Jafar Panahi Honored at Cannes: A Palme d’Or for Freedom

This is Beirut 24/05 21:20 - Reading : 2 minute(s)

Cannes Film Festival Cannes2025 France Cinema Jafar Panahi Iran

The curtain came down on the 78th Cannes Film Festival Saturday night with a deeply symbolic moment on the Croisette: Iranian director and political dissident Jafar Panahi was awarded the Palme d’Or for his underground film It Was Just an Accident. Shot in secret, the film moved the jury—chaired by Juliette Binoche—who granted it the ...

Inside Cannes 2025: 22 Films Vying for Palme d'Or

This is Beirut 24/05 10:30 - Reading : 7 minute(s)

Cannes Film Festival Cannes2025 France Cinema Culture Art

A total of 22 films are competing for the top prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival, which wraps up on Saturday. Here is a list of the titles vying for the Palme d'Or, which will be awarded by this year's jury president Juliette Binoche and her seven fellow judges, including Oscar-winner Halle Berry and Succession star Jeremy Strong. A ...

Sebastião Salgado, Photographer of Humanity and Nature, Dies at 81

This is Beirut 23/05 22:30 - Reading : 3 minute(s)

Sebastião Salgado Photographer Brazil Culture France

French-Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado, acclaimed for his monumental body of work depicting wildlife, landscapes, and people across the globe, died on Friday at the age of 81, the French Academy of Fine Arts announced. Salgado was a member of the Academy since 2016. The Academy expressed its deep sorrow, describing him as “a great ...

SpotlightCannes 2025: Films as Living Paintings

Bélinda Ibrahim 23/05 17:00 - Reading : 4 minute(s)

Cannes Film Festival Cinema Culture Cannes

Some films speak, others depict, but rare are those that feel like paintings. At Cannes 2025, two films in competition stand out for their deep connection to visual art: Renoir by Chie Hayakawa and The Phoenician Scheme by Wes Anderson. The first explores the intimate world of a young girl immersed in Impressionism. The second, more stylized, ...

Saeed Roustaee at Cannes: Filming for Iran, Despite the Cost

This is Beirut 23/05 13:30 - Reading : 3 minute(s)

Cannes Film Festival Iran Cannes2025 France Culture Art

“It’s very important to me that my films are seen by people in my country,” said Iranian filmmaker Saeed Roustaee in an interview with AFP. Three years after Leila’s Brothers, Roustaee is back in competition at Cannes with a film that received official shooting permits. After his previous visit to the Croisette in 2022, the 35-year-old ...

Cannes Hotel Legend Retires After Decades of Star Encounters

This is Beirut 23/05 10:30 - Reading : 2 minute(s)

Cannes Film Festival France Culture Stars Cannes2025

French maître d'hôtel Jean-Francois Pomares says he never has time to see a film at the Cannes Festival, but he has met many of its stars over the years, including a young Sharon Stone. "It was at table 24, I still remember," said the 61-year-old who oversees the dining room at the Carlton Hotel in the French Riviera city. At the time, "nobody ...

"Humans": The Poetry of Knowledge at Le Monnot Theater

Marie-Christine Tayah 22/05 14:00 - Reading : 5 minute(s)

Theater Culture Beirut France Art Le Monnot

From May 28 to June 1, Le Monnot theater welcomes Humans, a unique performance by Swiss artist Narcisse. Directed by Jean-Philippe Daguerre, this poetic-musical creation explores human knowledge through an innovative staging that blends poetry, music, and theater. Praised by French critics, Humans stands out for its intellectual richness, ...