Film fra Sør is very proud to present this year’s main guest: Nadine Labaki. The maybe most recognised current Arabic director is coming to Oslo on the 5th October 2011 – and you could meet her.
Nadine Labaki opens this year’s Film fra Sør with her new film Where Do We Go Now?. The film premiered at Cannes this spring, in the Un Certain Regard section of the official selection. It is a musical comedy on how women can prevent men from going to war. We are really looking forward to spend an evening with Labaki and her strong, innovative sisters.
Many got to know Nadine Labaki when she released Caramel in 2007 – a film taking the audience into a beauty salon in Beirut. While following the lives and love stories of the women populating the salon, we got to discover a totally different Beirut than the war-torn city described by the media.
Already in her previous career as a music video director, Labaki had broken from the expected patterns. In one of her most successful videos, she made the pop star Nancy Ajram dance as a sexy waitress in a traditional Lebanese café. This sparked an uproar and lead to accusations of indecency. At the same time, Labaki’s videos helped Ajram become one of the Arab world’s most iconic pop stars. And Labaki’s answer to the critics? Playing the sex card was not an expression of weakness, but rather of strength, and what she had done in the video was to portray a strong and independent woman who did exactly what she wanted.
“Women in Lebanon are living in a contradiction between what we want, what we desire, and what we allow ourselves. Society judges us very harshly for the decisions we make, and we also condemn ourselves.”, Labaki said at the launch of Caramel. With Where Do We Go Now?, she really lets the women take control of the community. With this move, she changes our perception of Arab women even more drastically.
During the Film fra Sør festival, Where Do We Go Now? will be shown three times, including at the Opening Ceremony on the 6th October. Labaki will also attend a press conference on the 5th October, and she will in addition host a Master Class and an Artist Talk session on the film.
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