The association Cultural Resistance started the Cultural Resistance International Film Festival of Lebanon out of a need to act. It is an instinct to survive, to resist through culture, literature, music and highlighting women’s impact in society.
After the first edition in Tripoli in 2013, the second edition in 2014 took place in four cities: Sidon, Tyre, Zahle and Beirut. For the first time a film festival in Lebanon has been able to assemble players from India, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Japan, Iraq, Algeria, Tunisia. This film festival in Lebanon has been able to assemble different players from each country, particularly from universities and institutions (embassies, ministries, institutes) from both Asia and Europe. It has been supported by a remarkable national and international solidarity, in the dramatic context of what the city of Tripoli is experiencing, as much as the entire country.
The second project of the Cultural Resistance association was born during the festival. Very quickly, the beauty and potential of a singularly unique place – what is today known as the Rachid Karami Fairgrounds in Tripoli, once conceived in the 1960s and given form by the world-renowned Architect Oscar Niemeyer – inspired the desire to establish a wide-reaching artistic event that would complement the festival in its next edition.
The aim was to open the first Lebanese International Biennale for Cinema and the Arts (BLICA) thereby arousing the ghosts of the international fair grounds. Thus, Cultural Resistance proposed a multi-disciplinary, international competition inspired by the unfinished fair grounds by the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer in Tripoli.
The competition was conceived and initiated by Jocelyne Saab, filmmaker, founder and director of the Cultural Resistance Film Festival, by Mathilde Rouxel, the film historian Mickaël Robert-Gonçalves, responsible for the international and multi-disciplinary Oscar Niemeyer competition, by the philosopher Andrés Claro, and by the architect Daniel Guibert.
Two texts on the Theme of the competition ‘Rupture in the Representation of the Real,’ one by philosopher Andres Claro “The “Niemeyer City” competition: incompletion and the sense of history and one by Daniel Guibert “Parataxis and para()sites” serve as the first works dedicated to the competition. From the numerous submissions only 35 works from 23 different countries were selected.
The selected artworks will be showcased in the multidisciplinary exhibition comprising of films, videos, installation art, paintings, photography, literature and performance art at the Biennale of Contemporary Art at MACAM under the auspices of the Minister of Culture, Dr. Ghattas Khoury, who will inaugurate on Saturday, September 16 at 6pm.
MACAM – The Modern and Contemporary Art Museum in Alita/Byblos is the first contemporary art museum in Lebanon. A large concrete factory compound on a hilltop near Byblos has been transformed by an NGO into a dynamic museum. Founded in 2013 with the aim to preserve, document, exhibit and foster art in Lebanon, it boasts 300 artworks by 115 artists in its permanent exhibition, Panorama of Sculpture, that spans over a century of sculpture art in Lebanon.
Since inception, MACAM has held a number of exhibitions and retrospectives, special events as well as six competitions (How to Transform a Factory into a Museum, The Age of Bronze, The Age of Wood, the Age of Iron, the Age of Recycling, and The Age of Ceramics) that were paired with the showcase of an accomplished Lebanese master in this medium.
MACAM houses a vast archive of books on Lebanese and Arab art genres, photography, architecture, as well as exhibition catalogues, art magazines, posters, and other mementos. RectoVerso in Beirut is carried by the same NGO and effectively is the country’s foremost art resource library, comprising 1500 oeuvres and hosts the capital city’s longest running street book market taking place the first Saturday of every month.
MACAM is also an educational museum that has been reaching out to schools and other institutions, welcoming children from across Lebanon and allowing them to learn about their cultural heritage, and experience nature. Young visitors not only get to enjoy workshops – MACAM is the only museum in Lebanon that has a dedicated space for young, budding artists to express themselves creatively and experiment with a variety of media.
More info: www.macamlebanon.org.
Modern And Contemporary Art Museum – MACAM Alita|Byblos, Lebanon
Tel. +961 (0)3 271 500 or 03197 900
