VENICE: Inside an amply lit space in the Arsenale, one of the most prominent exhibition areas at the Venice Biennale, multimedia installations in Lebanon’s pavilion depict the beauty and chaos that has befallen the country after several years of economic and political crises.
There’s Ayman Baalbaki’s arresting 2021 work “Janus Gate” — a two-sided installation (named for the Roman god of beginnings, endings, transitions and time, usually depicted with two faces) covered in the artist’s abstract expressionist brushstrokes, which underlines the idea of a fragmented city. The vibrant front is typical of Baalbaki’s expressionistic painting style; it features the media panels placed on construction sites depicting an artist’s rendition of what the building will look like decorated with neon lights and spray-paint, imposing the lively chaos of the capital city’s present onto corporate promises of a brighter future.
Walk through a doorway to the back side and the visitor is confronted by a dimly lit olive-green monochrome recreation of a watchman’s hut, with a washing line and small table outside. From inside the hut comes a red light showing, Baalbaki explains, “the heat of a living creature.” The olive-green is a deliberate reference to the military, and how the civil wars in Lebanon and Syria turned civilians into soldiers. The red light alludes to the thermal signatures visible through night-vision scopes.
Ayman Baalbaki, Janus Gate, 2021. (Supplied)
Baalbaki’s installation, like Janus, combines the past, present and future. It gracefully depicts the stoicism and resilience of the average citizen in the face of chaos.
Across from it, a haunting split-screen movie by Lebanese-French filmmaker and artist Danielle Arbid titled “Allô Chéri” (2022) plays. It is shot from inside a car driving through Beirut. The soundtrack is a woman narrating how she is constantly chasing money. That woman is Arbid’s mother.
Arbid was born in Lebanon in 1970. She moved to Paris aged 17. In 1997, she directed her first film. Since then, she has alternated between fiction, first-person documentaries, and video essays, and works as a photographer. Her work has won numerous awards and been the subject of several retrospectives.
For “Allô Chéri,” Arbid installed a recording device in her mother’s mobile phone (with her mother’s consent) and soon discovered that her mother was running her own banking system — a result of Lebanon’s financial collapse and the need for the people to access money through other means than the official economic system.
“I discovered my mother’s turbulent financial life,” Arbid told Arab News. “Secrets of debts that she hid from us, but that we (guessed at), because she was very stressed during this period. My mother’s life resembles the economic life of Lebanon today.”
The film also shows Arbid’s mother wandering the streets of Beirut. Like those around her, she looks for answers and clings on to hope, but clearly carries with her the despair and weight of the tragedies that have befallen her city.
Aline Asmar d’Amman. (Supplied)
“Allô Chéri” is one of a series of nine films that Arbid has been working on for several years titled “My Lebanese Family.” Each family member has a film focused on them, each in a different genre.
Lebanon’s participation at the 59th Venice Biennale is only the second in its history, and considering all that has transpired in the country, exhibiting in Venice is a feat that goes against all odds.
The pavilion was inaugurated one month before the Lebanese went to vote in the country’s parliamentary elections — ones which resulted in victory for some opposition candidates, spelling momentary celebration for those hoping for change. A desire and commitment to change and to Lebanese heritage and culture can similarly be felt in Venice — but through art.
The Lebanese state provided no money to stage the show; it was entirely privately funded by generous Lebanese art collectors and patrons.
“The private sector wanted to make sure that Lebanon was well-represented,” Lebanese art collector and patron Basel Dalloul, one of the pavilion’s funders, told Arab News. “The exhibition does represent Beirut’s contemporary art movement. It portrays a commentary on the two sides of Beirut echoing the ancient Roman god of Janus and his two two-faces.”
The Lebanese Visual Art Association (LVAA) organized the Lebanese Pavilion under the patronage of the Lebanese Ministry of Culture, who mandated Nada Ghandour to curate the show. The two artists — Arbid and Baalbaki — were chosen to provide two different but connected viewpoints on contemporary Beirut. Arbid has witnessed her country’s travails from the diaspora, whereas Baalbaki lives and works in Beirut.
“This year, the Lebanese Pavilion comes to life in spite of the extremely challenging times that Lebanon is going through, and the political, economic, and social turmoil that the Lebanese are facing,” Ghandour told Arab News. “By placing the Lebanese Pavilion in the Arsenale, I wanted to show that Lebanon still exists on the world art map and also to send a strong message to artists in Lebanon to encourage and motivate them; to show them that there is support for them, and also promote Lebanon’s contemporary art scene, an important sector for the country.
Danielle Arbid, Allô Chérie, 2015. (Supplied)
“The exhibition invites viewers on a symbolic journey into our contemporary world through a theme, a city, and two artists who maintain a political and aesthetic dialogue from a distance, by presenting artworks which are so far and yet so close,” she continued.
Paris-based Lebanese architect Aline Asmar d’Amman, who designed the pavilion.
“My first intuition was to express a powerful message of hope and unity from Lebanon to the world,” d’Amman told Arab News. “The circular brutalist egg-shaped envelope is a symbolic gesture, a tribute to the cinema of Joseph Karam in Beirut and the experimental theater by Oscar Niemeyer in Tripoli, both monuments that became ruins during the civil war. The structure is open like an oculus, revealing the magnificent wooden framework of the Arsenal. Ayman’s monumental sculptural installation and Danielle’s energetic images travelling through the streets of Beirut, framed in the circle, incarnate the dialogue and the deep plunge into our beloved city.”
Through their artworks, those two artists poignantly — and at times painfully — relay the beauty and decay of the city of Beirut and life as they once knew it in Lebanon.
Baalbaki, born in 1975 — the year the Lebanese Civil War started — has long been one of Lebanon’s most acclaimed artists, known for his work that focuses on political and social issues relating to Lebanon and the Arab world, particularly the conflicts that have ravaged the region.
“The city of Beirut for me is just as Foucault says: ‘A heterochronic space,’ meaning within one space there are several other spaces — utopian and real at the same time,” Baalbaki explained. “You feel like Beirut stretches forward and backward. Janus has two heads: one head faces backwards and another forward. He symbolizes the beginning and the end of time. And, with time, there is a promise of the future.”
DUBAI: Celebrities from Gigi Hadid to Michelle Obama flooded part-Middle Eastern actress Yara Shahidi’s Instagram comments section this weekend as she graduated from Harvard University.
Shahidi took to the social media platform to mark the occasion, sharing two photos of herself wearing a black graduation gown and a custom Dior skirt suit in the prestigious Ivy League school’s signature red hue.
“Yara (noun): a Harvard graduate #ITSOFFICIAL #CLASSOF2022,” she captioned the images.
Additionally, Shahidi’s father, Afshin, also took to the social media platform to post a selfie photo of himself and his daughter on her graduation day.
“Beautifully surreal moment seeing our delicate petal in full bloom,” her dad captioned the picture, tagging Yara and his wife, Keri.
A number of celebrities also took to the “Grown-ish” star’s comment section to celebrate the fresh graduate.
“CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!” posted Tracee Ellis Ross, who co-starred in “Black-ish” as Rainbow Johnson, mom to Shahidi’s character.
“Mashallah, congrats beautiful” wrote US-Iranian singer Snoh Aalegra.
Former First Lady of the United States Michelle Obama also left a sweet congratulatory comment.
“Congratulations, Yara! This is such a special accomplishment. I am so proud of you and the strong example you’ve set for others to follow,” she wrote.
Obama wrote Shahidi’s college recommendation letter.
The 22-year-old was accepted into the school in 2017, but took a gap year before beginning her studies.
According to a piece published by Vogue US, Shahidi studied in the school’s social studies and African American departments. Her focus was on “Black political thought under a neocolonial landscape," and prior to graduating she completed a 136-page thesis titled “I Am a Man: The Emancipation of Humanness from Western Hegemony Through the Lens of Sylvia Wynter.”
Working on her thesis, Shahidi said she felt “pushed” as an academic.
“It was important for me, as a young adult, to prove to myself — during these times of transition — that I am capable, and perhaps more capable than I give myself credit,” she told the magazine.
During her four-year undergraduate program at Harvard, Shahidi maintained her busy schedule as an actor — starring in hit shows “Black-ish” and “Grown-ish” — producer, and Dior brand ambassador.
Shahidi’s impending post-grad plans including wrapping up the filming of the fifth season of “Grown-ish,” which is slated to kick off in July.
CHENNAI: “Top Gun: Maverick” is not all action and high-flying antics — it has tender moments, poignant nostalgia and a touch of romance that make Tom Cruise’s Pete “Maverick” Mitchell endearingly humane. A sequel to Tony Scott’s 1986 “Top Gun,” a blockbuster that is said to have caused a spike in US military enlistment, this fresh take is sure to enrapture crowds once again.
The film, which played at the just-concluded Cannes Film Festival, is enriched by the presence of a boyish and charming Cruise, who is a trained pilot and executed many stunts in the movie propelled by director Joseph Kosinski. The high-octane action is nail biting with daredevil maneuvers that are magical to watch.
The sequel catches up with Maverick after more than 30 years of service as one of the Navy’s top aviators. He is seen pushing the envelope as a courageous test pilot and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him, before a dangerous mission comes his way.
The narrative falls into a predictable pattern after that, but the flying — during the practice sessions and the actual operation — is exhilarating with the action sequences captured with clockwork precision by cinematographer Claudio Miranda. What is more, they look authentic — indeed, they are, for we are told Cruise is famously averse to CGI, opting instead to perform white-knuckling stunts himself. Production designer Jeremy Hindle got hold of old fighter jets and refurbished them to create believable and engaging action sequences.
Much of the runtime is confined to this, but when the film moves to a tender love story between Penny (Jennifer Connelly), who runs a local bar, and Maverick, we understand that he is not just obsessed with his planes. This plotline allows for a more nuanced version of the lead character to come to the fore, and the film is all the better for it.
Kosinski and editor Eddie Hamilton, as well as the writers, are careful to keep the balance intact between this personal drama and the flying adventures. The score by Harold Faltermeyer, Lady Gaga and Hans Zimmer also adds to the enjoyment quotient, with Lady Gaga’s song “Hold My Hand” of particular noteworthiness. But in the end, “Top Gun: Maverick” is all about death-defying action and miraculous escapes and will give cinema-goers a wild ride.
CANNES, France: Ruben Ostlund’s social satire “Triangle of Sadness” won the Palme d’Or at the 75th Cannes Film Festival on Saturday, handing Ostlund one of cinema’s most prestigious prizes for the second time. Meanwhile, Swedish-Egyptian filmmaker Tarik Saleh took best screenplay at Cannes for “Boy From Heaven,” a thriller set in Cairo’s Al-Azhar Mosque. The festival also named Korean star Song Kang Ho best actor for his performance in Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s film “Broker,” about Korean family seeking a home for an abandoned baby. “I’d like to thank all those who appreciate Korean cinema,” said Song, who also starred in Bong Joon Ho’s Palme d’Or winning film “Parasite” in Cannes three years ago. Best actress went to Zar Amir Ebrahimi for her performance as a journalist in Ali Abbasi’s “Holy Spider,” a true-crime thriller about a serial killer targeting sex workers in the Iranian religious city of Mashhad. Violent and graphic, “Holy Spider” wasn’t permitted to shoot in Iran and instead was made in Jordan. Accepting the award, Ebrahimi said the film depicts “everything that’s impossible to show in Iran.” The awards were selected by a nine-member jury headed by French actor Vincent Lindon. The jury prize was split between friendship tale “The Eight Mountains,” by Charlotte Vandermeersch and Felix Van Groeningen, and Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski’s “EO,” about a donkey’s journey across a pitiless modern Europe. “I would like to thank my donkeys,” said Skolimowski, who used six donkeys while making the film. This year’s award for best first film, the Camera d’Or, went to Riley Keough and Gina Gammell for “War Pony,” a drama about the Pine Ridge Reservation made in collaboration with Oglala Lakota and Sicangu Lakota citizens. Saturday’s closing ceremony brings to a close a Cannes that has attempted to fully resuscitate the annual France extravaganza which was canceled in 2020 by the pandemic and saw modest crowds last year. This year’s festival also unspooled against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, which sparked red-carpet protests and a dialogue about the purpose of cinema in wartime. Last year, the French body horror thriller “Titane” took the top prize at Cannes, making director Julia Decournau only the second female filmmaker ever to win the Palme. In 2019, Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite” triumphed in Cannes before doing the same at the Academy Awards. This year, the biggest Hollywood films at Cannes — “Elvis,”“Top Gun: Maverick,”“Three Thousand Years of Longing” — played outside Cannes’ competition lineup of 21 films. But their presence helped restore some of Cannes’ glamor after the pandemic scaling down the festival for the last two years.
DUBAI: A handful of Arab celebrities have been spotted at the 75th Cannes Film Festival since organizers rolled out the red carpet on May 17.
As the festival comes to an end, the red carpet played host to two more stars from the region: Egyptian actress Mona Zaki and Saudi singer, TV presenter and actress Aseel Omran.
The stars attended the screening of French screenwriter Leonor Serraille’s second feature, “Mother And Son (Un Petit Frere),” championing celebrity-loved Arab designers.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Mona Zaki (@monazakiofficial)
A post shared by Mona Zaki (@monazakiofficial)
Zaki stepped out wearing a form-fitting black gown from Lebanese designer Georges Hobeika’s fall/winter 2022-2023 collection. The dress, with a low back, featured geometric crystal detailing.
Omran, the Khobar-born star, opted for a fully embroidered dress from US superstar Jennifer Lopez’s favorite designer Zuhair Murad.
The blue floor-length flowing dress is off-the-shoulder and featured feather-detailing.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Aseel | أسيل (@aseel)
A post shared by Aseel | أسيل (@aseel)
The stars are both brand ambassadors for the cosmetics company L’Oreal Paris, which they were representing at the film festival.
“So excited to be @festivaldecannes with @lorealparis,” wrote Zaki to her 7.4 million followers.
In March, Omran was named as the first Middle East ambassador for French luxury label Dior.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Aseel | أسيل (@aseel)
A post shared by Aseel | أسيل (@aseel)
The songstress, known for her roles in TV shows including Netflix’s “Black Crows,” “Qabel Lil Kaser” and “Harun Al-Rashid,” rose to fame following her participation in reality TV shows “Gulf Stars” and “Hiya wa Huwa.”
The 32-year-old musician and fashion star has also partnered with other international brands including Italian luxury fashion house Bulgari.
Meanwhile, Zaki, 45, is a renowned Egyptian actress who started her career at the age of 16.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Aseel | أسيل (@aseel)
A post shared by Aseel | أسيل (@aseel)
One of her most recent films is the action-thriller “The Spider,” which is currently in theaters in the Middle East. She stars alongside Egyptian actor Ahmed El-Sakka.
The actress also starred in the Arabic remake of the hit Italian feature “Perfect Strangers,” which was released on Netflix in January.
The Cannes Film Festival was also attended by Palestinian-Dutch model Bella Hadid, part-Saudi catwalk star Shanina Shaik, Saudi actress Fatima Al-Banawi and Tunisian-French model Sonia Ben Ammar, to name a few.
DUBAI: Celebrity-loved jewelry label Jacquie Aiche’s recently released collection, “Divine Rising,” is all about summer loving — and the part-Egyptian designer behind the brand spoke to Arab News about the inspiration behind the line.
Inspired by “Mother Earth,” the designer, who was born to an Egyptian father and an Indigenous American mother, explained that the new release celebrates the creative energy drawn from new beginnings.
“It seems as if everything around us is going through an incredible period of rebirth and transformation, so I wanted to honor this sense of renewal, and the beautiful, wild nature it carries,” the designer said.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jacquie Aiche (@jacquieaiche)
A post shared by Jacquie Aiche (@jacquieaiche)
For this collection, the jeweler tapped US model Sofia Richie to front her campaign.
The 23-year-old It-girl posed in the brand’s diamond-encrusted body chains, bracelets, earrings and rings which were designed and handcrafted in Aiche’s studio.
“Sofia radiates such a natural, ethereal glow and was an absolute dream to work with,” said Aiche. “Her energy made the jewels shine even brighter.”
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jacquie Aiche (@jacquieaiche)
A post shared by Jacquie Aiche (@jacquieaiche)
For Aiche, jewelry is “everything” — it is much more than just adornment. “It speaks to the soul. It is a form of self-expression, a way of deep healing and a talisman of personal meaning,” she explained.
The designer’s main goal with her brand, she said, is to create pieces that carry “special, transformative energy” that brighten up her customers. I want to spread the love I feel daily,” she said.
Aiche launched her eponymous label from her garage in 2008.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jacquie Aiche (@jacquieaiche)
A post shared by Jacquie Aiche (@jacquieaiche)
When she first began making jewelry, she would design pieces anonymously and sell them in her boutique, she said.
“At that time, fine jewelry was so traditional but I wanted to create pieces that felt special, spiritual and personal,” she said. “I felt so connected to the healing power of precious stones and wanted to share that energy with the world. When I saw how women responded to my pieces, I knew I was on the right path since the brand has taken a life of its own.”
She has since amassed an impressive celebrity client list that includes Hailey Bieber, Usher, Rihanna, Jada Pinkett Smith and Blake Lively.
“I have such a strong, beautiful tribe, who have all sort of organically found and gravitated towards my designs. I love that about life, the unknown and the unexpected,” she said.