Omar Naim - Education and "Grand Theater: A Tale of Beirut"

Education and "Grand Theater: A Tale of Beirut"

With the help of the Fares Foundation, Naim went on to study film at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. During his four-year education at Emerson, Naim created a number of short films, among which figures his 1999 thesis, a 28-minute documentary titled Grand Theater: A Tale of Beirut. In this work, Naim puts the spotlight on Beirut’s historic Grand Theater, which was torn in a violent no-man's land between two bellicose sides in the Lebanese civil war. The theater serves as a metaphorical illustration for Lebanon's tragic 15-year civil war. Through the eyes of the old theater, the different tales of actors, directors, soldiers and civilians are woven together at the Grand Theater. As war escalates in scale and absurdity, the lines between war and theater, as well as between show and reality, become blurred. The film earned Naim several awards at Emerson, an Honorable Mention, and played at a number of international festivals. Naim was also a finalist for the Student Oscar given by the AMPAS in 2000. Above all, and perhaps most importantly, this film earned the young director loaded hands-on experience he needed to be able to tackle his next giant project, which was still dormant at that time. “I learned everything making that film, from inception to print”, says Naim.