This corner discusses an Arab creator with quick questions regarding his creative preoccupations, his new productions, and some of what he would like to share with his readers. “The completion of a work of art has become a declaration of war on death and the black reality,” the Lebanese writer and film director said in his interview with The New Arab.
■ What keeps you busy these days?
– I’m finishing the last operations of my new movie; It bears the name “Selma”. I am also doing research for the next film and continuing to teach at the Film Institute at Saint Joseph University in Beirut, in addition to giving specialized courses in the field of documentary film.
■ What is your last published work and what is your next work?
– His latest work is the book “The Last Show, Biography of Selma Tripoli,” which was published in Beirut in 2021. This book has now been turned into a long documentary called “Selma.” As for the next work, it is under development, and it deals with waves of emigration and displacement that our region witnessed between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
■ Are you satisfied with your production and why?
– With the great collapse that we have been experiencing in Lebanon for more than three years, the difficulties and challenges have increased, and the completion of any artistic and cultural work has become a declaration of war on death and the black reality. I am not satisfied with all this reality, and I am trying with my work to assure myself that I am still alive. Production in this circumstance is a declaration of life and an attempt to breach genocide.
■ If you had to start over, which path would you choose?
– I will re-choose the same path, which was titled “Cinema’s Path Towards the Unknown,” since my first book on Lebanese cinema in 1997.
■ What change do you expect or want in the world?
What is remarkable today is that the whole world is “excessive,” as we say colloquially. I think we are witnessing the end of an “old” world, a change in the balance of power, and a transition to a new phase. However, I feel that humanity is strongly defeated, heresies are increasing amid resounding slogans, and change will remain in the form. The duplicity is frightening, and we need a little more honesty, more silence, and fewer pictures.
■ A character from the past you would like to meet, and why her in particular?
– I have been working for some time on writing my meeting with Gibran Khalil Gibran, to better understand this period of my life, how to deal with pain, what remains of the revolutionary spirit, and how the relationship with the ego takes shape.
■ A friend that comes to mind or a book that you keep coming back to?
– My father is the friend who is absent and always present. I return to him to talk a little. I hear him and he hears me before we both sink into a beautiful, life-filled silence.
■ What are you reading now?
– I read books related to Lebanon in the sixties, and my current stance is with a book by Nicolas Nassif: “The Second Office: A Ruler in the Shadows.”
■ What do you hear now and do you suggest a singing or musical experience that we can share with you?
– Despite my great love for jazz music, I devote every week lately to rediscovering one of the composers of classical music. And my suggestion goes at this stage to the Russian composer Sergey Rachmaninov with: Piano Concerto No2 in C minor op. 18.
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Lebanese writer and film director and research professor at the IESAV Institute of Cinema at Saint Joseph University in Beirut. He directed more than twenty documentaries on political and social issues related to Lebanon and the Arab world; Most notably: “Oh My Life” (2017), “Kamal Jumblatt, Witness and Testimony” (2015), “Mercedes” (2011), “A Lesson in History” (2009), and “The War of Peace” (2007). and Refugees for Life (2006).
In addition to his films, Zakack wrote two books on cinema: “The Last Show, Biography of Selma Tripoli” (2021), and “Lebanese Cinema: A Cinema Path Towards the Unknown (1929-1996)” (1997). He recently presented an exhibition entitled “In This Place: Stripes of Downtown Beirut” at the Mina Image Center in Beirut.
