This is a conversation with Lebanese director Ely Dagher. He is the director of the Palme D’Or-winning Waves ’98, one of my favorite short films. He also has an upcoming feature film called The Sea Ahead.
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Topics discussed:
- Waves ’98
- The image of the city
- The 2015 ‘You Stink’ Lebanon uprising: context/background
- The feeling of history repeating itself: Waves ’98 features the 1998 waste crisis which led to the 2015 waste crisis (which led to the uprising)
- Inter-generational anxiety: ‘I don’t want to end up like them’
- On resilience and why it’s a failed notion
- The ‘ghostly figure’ in literature and movies, including in Lebanon
- Haunting from the future, the feel of being stuck (permanent liminality)
- The post-August 2020 port of Beirut moment
- Interesting comparisons between Lebanon and Hong Kong, and their relationship with the past and future
- How do we live day to day while also being in a state of anxiety? (his upcoming film)
- How Beirut is portrayed in Waves ’98 and how Beirut has changed since the 90s
- The relationship to the city and the sea in Beirut
- Beirut as a ghost town
- Hauntings in Waves ’98 and in real life; cyclical hauntings
- Our peculiar relationship with Television
- Our complicated relationship with the sea growing up in post-1990s Lebanon
- The politics of decay (my essay on the topic)
- war/post-war vs war/not-war
- The anticipation of violence
- ‘wartime’
- Is there a way out of that cyclical haunting?
Recommended Books & Movies
The music is by Tarabeat.