Post-War Revival
After the war, Beirut reemerged as one of the centers of mass media production in the Arab world. While media production was concentrated around television, there were attempts to revive the film industry in Lebanon, especially by fresh graduates of Lebanese film schools. While filmmaking schools are a rarity in the region, by the mid-1990s, six of Beirut's universities were offering degrees in cinema and television and that attracted an influx of students from Arab countries who chose to receive some or all of their media training in Lebanon.
Financing of film production in Lebanon in this period was mainly dependent on foreign support, both European and from the Lebanese diaspora.
Many films, such as Jocelyne Saab's experimental film, Once Upon a Time in Beirut, examined the destruction that was left after the war. Maroun Baghdadi's Beyrouth Hors la Vie won the Special Jury Prize at Canned in 1991. Other's like Jean-Claude Codsi's Histoire d'un retoure examined the issue of returning to the country after years of exile and war. In 1994, Codsi's film won the jury award at the Festival international du film Francophone de Namur in Belgium. While many films produced in the 1990s were hits at international festivals, Lebanese viewers were not drawn to the mainly-war themed films. An exception was West Beirut (film) (1998), which was a local and an international hit. It was not only the first Lebanese film, but also the first Arabic-language film to have general release in America.
In 1997, Youssef Chahine's French-produced film, Destiny, was shot on location in Lebanon, including the historic mountain town of in Beiteddine.
Read more about this topic: Cinema Of Lebanon
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