{"id":34118,"date":"2026-02-04T11:10:41","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T11:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressespartout.com\/?p=34118"},"modified":"2026-02-05T10:57:52","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T10:57:52","slug":"the-second-encounter-film-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pressespartout.com\/?p=34118","title":{"rendered":"The Second Encounter Film Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Organized within the framework of Metropolis<\/a>\u2019 Cinematheque Beirut project, The Second Encounter<\/strong> is a film festival dedicated to film archives and archival practices. To encounter archives today is to reflect on what it means to preserve, restore, restitute, and disseminate film and film-related materials in times and territories continuously unsettled by war and destruction. Entitled \u201cAfter Absence\u201d, this second edition focuses on works that propose different ways of engaging with loss, approaching archives beyond their function of documentation and resisting absence, in order to activate them as sites of political and social imagination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taking place over nine days, from 6 to 14 February 2026, the festival is organized in partnership with the Network of Arab Alternative Screens (NAAS) and with the support of the Drosos Foundation. It brings together seminal and newly restored films, alongside works that re-use archival material. Through screenings, performances, and talks, and an exhibition, the program foregrounds recent restoration efforts in the Arabic-speaking region and opens a space for exchange around current archival practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The program opens with the restored copy of Ghassan Salhab\u2019s first feature film Beirut Phantom<\/em><\/strong> (1998) and closes with Mohamad Soueid\u2019s My Heart Beats Only For Her<\/em><\/strong> (2008), creating a conversation between two filmmakers who have been shaping the cinematic landscape in Lebanon since the mid-1990s. The newly restored copy of Sudanese filmmaker Hussein Shariffe\u2019s The Dislocation of Amber<\/em><\/strong> (1975) will be screened in dialogue with Pier Paolo Pasolini\u2019s The Walls of Sanaa<\/em><\/strong> (1972) followed by a conversation with members from Cimatheque (Cairo) and Sudan Film Factory (Khartoum) to discuss what it means to make films and restore them in contexts of exile and devastation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The festival has also partnered with UMAM D&R to highlight the work of pioneer Lebanese filmmaker and technical innovator Youssef Fahdeh, active in the 1950s. Musician Nour Sokhon will accompany fragments from his 1958 film Fil-Dar Ghariba<\/em><\/strong> in a cine-concert conceived by Ayman Nahleh, curator of the exhibition Youssef Fahdeh: A Story from Baalbeck Studios,<\/em><\/strong> which will open at UMAM D&R\u2019s Hangar on the 9th of February. A case study with Association Jocelyne Saab and Cinematheque Beirut on the restoration of films by Jocelyne Saab and Georges Nasser will guide us through the skills, infrastructures, and partnerships necessary to preserve and restitute our own film heritage. This session will culminate in the screening of Jocelyne Saab\u2019s Ghazl el Banet<\/em><\/strong> (1985), recently restored in Beirut by the Association from the 35mm positive conservation print belonging to the Canadian production company that supported the film, and held at the Cin\u00e9math\u00e8que qu\u00e9b\u00e9coise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Found footage practices occupy a central place in this edition\u2019s program. From early and important experimentation such as Assia Djebar\u2019s The Zerda and the Songs of Forgetting<\/em><\/strong> (1982) to more recent works such as Diana Allen\u2019s Partition<\/em><\/strong> (2025), Mahasen Nasser-Eldin\u2019s The Silent Protest<\/em><\/strong> (2019), Ghada Sayegh\u2019s Meteores<\/em><\/strong> (2025), and Rana Abushkaidem and Mira Jibreen\u2019s Wadi Foukin, Deir Hanna<\/em><\/strong> (2021), these works confront colonial and imperial archives, listening to what has been silenced and erased in order to transcend the violence they contain and perpetuate. In collaboration with the Arab Image Foundation, the festival will present One Image, Two Acts<\/em><\/strong> (2020) and Scenes of Extraction<\/em><\/strong> (2023) by Sanaz Sohrabi. Drawing on elements from the archives of British Petroleum (BP) during its operations in Iran, Iraq, and Kuwait, the films examine the entanglements between the political economy of photography, archival technologies, and the visual history of resource extraction in Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are also invited to navigate various archival fragments through Rapha\u00ebl Grisey and Bouba Tour\u00e9\u2019s film Xaraasi Xanne (Crossing Voices)<\/em><\/strong> (2022), Lea Morin\u2019s performance The Missing Cinema of Madeline Beaus\u00e9jour,<\/em><\/strong> as well as an encounter with Ali Hussein Al-Adway, About Labor and the Archive,<\/em><\/strong> transporting us into the heart of the political and social struggles of the 20th century and cinema\u2019s capacity to restitute these often marginalized narratives. Furthermore, personal archives and home videos become sites of inquiry in Three Promises<\/em><\/strong> (2024) by Youssef Srouji, The Wedding<\/em><\/strong> (2025) by Nour Kheir-Alanam, Karaoke<\/em><\/strong> (2015) by Raed Yassin, The Video Story<\/em><\/strong> (2015) by Vartan Avakian, and Who Was Here<\/em><\/strong> (2025) by Evi Stamou. The filmmakers excavate the multiple stories these intimate materials contain, suggesting alternative ways to experience our histories and realities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In parallel to the festival, a closed symposium on archival practices, The Multiple Lives of Images,<\/em><\/strong> will bring together practitioners working in and around film archives in the Arabic-speaking region over three days. In partnership with the Acad\u00e9mie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts (ALBA), a two-day workshop with archivist Chantal Partamian will be organized for university students as part of Cinematheque Beirut\u2019s work in preserving Georges Nasser\u2019s archives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Organized within the framework of Metropolis\u2019 Cinematheque Beirut project, The Second Encounter is a film festival dedicated to film archives 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within the framework of Metropolis\u2019 Cinematheque Beirut project, The Second Encounter is a film festival dedicated to film archives 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