2019
BEIRUT ART FILM FESTIVAL
Weeks 3 and 4
7 - 17 January 2020
Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts (ALBA)
Audtorium 2
Io Leonardo 2019, 90’, Jesus Garces Lambert, Italian/English sub. @ 19.00
Io Leonardo is a fiction film about the life of Leonardo da Vinci, with Luca Argentero in the main role. This grand Italian cinema
production reveals the man, artist, researcher and inventor: Leonardo da Vinci. Based on the notes, drawings and paintings
of the Renaissance genius, the film deploys special effects to bring the oeuvre of the Italian genius into the 21st Century,
blending past and present, archives and cinema, period decors and contemporary landscapes.
Mona Lisa is Missing - the Man who Stole the Masterpiece 2012, 55’, Joe Medeiros, English @ 20.35
Mona Lisa is Missing is a documentary examining the fascinating mystery behind the theft of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa
from the Louvre Museum in 1911 by a humble Italian workman named Vincenzo Peruggia, who inexplicably held onto the
painting for over two years before he was captured.
Tuesday January 7
Wednesday January 8
Cy Dear 2018, 92’, Andrea Bettinetti, English @ 19.00
CY Twombly (1928–2011) was a truly amazing artist: painter, illustrator, sculptor, and photographer. This documentary is a
tribute to the prolific American creator, a contemporary of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns who inspired Michel
2019
BEIRUT ART FILM FESTIVAL
Weeks 3 and 4
7 - 17 January 2020
Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts (ALBA)
Auditorium 2
Wednesday January 8
Elliott Erwitt 2019, 52’, Adriana Lopez Sanfeliu, English @ 20.40
Elliott Erwitt is a legend photographer, worldwide renowned for his photos portraying Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Kennedy, Sophia
Loren and politicians including the last eleven American presidents, Che Guevara. The photographer’s assistant and close
friend, Adriana Lopez Sanfeliu delivers here an intimate portrait of the man who has seen the world change capturing poverty,
love, injustice and beauty.
Thursday January 9
Coming Back to Life 2019, 4’, JPAG Architect, music @ 19.00
The movie revolves around an architect’s obsession with Burj El Murr, the tower of bitterness, a soaring monument and an old
legacy of war, in the heart of Beirut.
Maguy Marin, l’urgence d’agir 2019, 108’, David Mambouch, French/English sub. @ 19.05
For more than 35 years now, Maguy Marin has asserted herself as a key choreographer on the world stage. Her seminal show
May B turned everything we knew about dance upside down. An artistic explosion whose echo still resonates today.
Friday January 10
2019
BEIRUT ART FILM FESTIVAL
Weeks 3 and 4
7 - 17 January 2020
Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts (ALBA)
Auditorium 2
Friday January 10
Red ! Art in Soviet Lands 2019, 52’, Pierre-Henri Gibert & Adrien Minard, French & English/English & French sub. @ 19.00
During the 1910s in Russia, a group of visionary painters adopted radically abstract approaches, upsetting the artistic conventions
of their time. From the frenzy of the 1917 revolution, a symbol of great freedom, to Stalinist totalitarianism; artists of the
Avant-garde (Malevitch, Tatlin, Lisstzky, Rodchenko, Stepanova, Deineka, and others) forged a new kind of art, one of extraordinary
modernity, and strived to nourish their originality while coping with the regime’s preconditions.
Yan Pei-Ming, Superstar 2019, 52’, Michel Quinejure, French/English sub. @ 20.00
Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution in China, Ming was at one time a painter for Maoist propaganda, before coming to
France to study at the Ecole des Beaux-arts. He is today a major figure in the contemporary art world. This film showcases
his consecration: Ming Superstar.
Monday January 13
Vertigine 2019, 7’, Nathalie Rosseti, French & Italian/English sub. @ 19.00
Giovanni Pascoli's The Vertigine poem inspires a correspondence with Alfred Hitchcock films. Poetic work based on archives
that questions human loss of balance.
Hitchcock Confidential 2019, 52’, Laurent Herbiet, English @ 19.10
A portrait of Alfred Hitchcock through the intimate, gentle and critical gaze of his wife and collaborator, Alma Reville, but also
through that of his biographer Patrick McGilligan as well as the recollections of Pat O’Connell Hitchcock, the daughter of
Alma and Alfred.
2019
BEIRUT ART FILM FESTIVAL
Weeks 3 and 4
7 - 17 January 2020
Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts (ALBA)
Auditorium 2
Tuesday January 14
The Great Buster - A Celebration 2018, 102’, Peter Bogdanovich, English/English sub. @ 19.00
The Great Buster celebrates the life and career of one of America’s most influential and celebrated filmmakers and comedians;
Buster Keaton, whose singular style and fertile output during the silent era created his legacy as a true cinematic visionary.
John Ford, the Man who Invented America 2019, 52’, Jean-Christophe Klotz, English @ 20.50
John Ford (1894-1973) is the most Oscars awarded director in the history of cinema. During his fifty-year carrier and nearly
150 movies, John Ford invented the legend of the American West. Bringing to life America’s founding myths and heroes,
dreams and disillusions, he forged the legend of the nation.
Wednesday January 15
Dora Maar 2019, 52’, Marie-Eve De Grave, French @ 19.00
Plunging the viewer into the heart of the photographic and pictorial work of Dora Maar, the film traces the exceptional life of
the crying woman. Released from the hold of Picasso, this is a unique must-see oeuvre, revealing a complete artist, totally
immersed in her time, as well as a multi-facetted woman in search of Truth and the Absolute.
2019
BEIRUT ART FILM FESTIVAL
Weeks 3 and 4
7 - 17 January 2020
Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts (ALBA)
Auditorium 2
Saving Egypt's Temples 2019, 52’, Oliver Lemaitre, English @ 19.00
In 1945, Nasser’s project of Assouan dam in Southern Egypt threatened to submerge hundreds of ancient temples, including
of Ramses II and Cleopatra. Thanks to an unprecedented international mobilization, this exceptional heritage was saved.
Mario Botta, the Space Beyond 2018, 78’, Loretta Dalpozzo, English @ 20.00
This film, a retrospective documentary, tells the Swedish quintet's history, through both their own eyes and those of the fans
that have supported them along the way. For metal music lovers, exclusively!
Thursday January 16
Wednesday January 15
Munch in Hell 2018, 74’, Stig Andersen, English @ 20.00
Munch in Hell looks at the life of the Norwegian painter Edward Munch who left more than 20.000 works of art, sketches and
drawings, extensive notes, letters, literary works and even drafts for an auto-biography.
Friday January 17
2019
BEIRUT ART FILM FESTIVAL
Weeks 3 and 4
7 - 17 January 2020
Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts (ALBA)
Auditorium 2
Friday January 17
Rembrandt, the Late Works 2014, 90’, Kat Mansoor, English/French sub. @ 19.00
The Rembrandt exhibition hosted and co-curated by London’s National Gallery and Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum was an event
like no other. From the mid-1650s until his death at age sixty-three, Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) generated a remarkable
body of work as he searched for a new, painterly, and expressive style. His later works demonstrate his mastery, skillfulness,
and exceptional ability to render the effects of light, and they have since defined his image as an artist.
Le Dernier Monet, les nymphéas et l’Amérique 2018, 52’, Pascale Bouhénic, French @ 20.35
Claude Monet, land artist ahead of his time, an extremely learned botanist and of course a painter with unlimited exigencies,
a firebrand for almost thirty years, and with eighty metres of water lily paintings, paved the way for Land Art.