
The film "Hizz ya Wizz" by Wissam Charaf opens the Lebanon focus at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival. (Credit: Clermont-Ferrand International Film Festival)
Every year, under Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival's "Panorama" programing, a specific geographical location is featured with a series of specially curated showings. This year, the largest festival of it's kind and the second film festival in France after Cannes, has chosen Lebanon.
"For a country half the size of Wales in the U.K., smaller than the state of Connecticut in the U.S., [10,452 km2], filmmaking in Lebanon has flourished remarkably over the past few years," reads an editorial introducing the program on Clermont ISSF's website. The focus, titled "Maabar," which means "passage" in Arabic, will include 20 films from the last 20 years, half of which are having their premieres are the festival, with about a quarter of them documentaries and many of the films directed by women.
In all, there are six programs featuring Lebanese cinema at the week-long festival: Four as part of Panorama, one of which is dedicated Wissam Charaf, who has won several awards at the festival and was a member of its jury in 2020. A fifth collection dedicated to Lebanese cinema giant Jocelyne Saab, and a sixth showcasing "Letters," Josef Khallouf's collaborative film project featuring 17 shorts by Lebanese filmmakers.
Among the films on screen starting Jan. 31 is the new documentary "Maabar" (2025) by Cédric Kayem and Anthony Tawil, which crosses genres, fusing with their ongoing podcast series of the same name telling the history of modern Lebanon through first-person stories. "Waves' 98" (2015) a Cannes-award-winning animated fiction by Ely Dagher is also on this week's list, as is "Les Chenilles" by sisters Michelle and Noel Keserwany, which won the Golden Bear for short film at the 2023 Berlinale, and Sundance-award-winning "Warsha" (2021) by Dania Bdeir.
Other films are coming from the creatives minds of Lucien Bourjeily, Nadim Tabet, Vincent Moon, Jessy Mousallem, Dania Bdeir, Ahmad Ghossein, Rami Kodeih, Ramzi Bashour, Manon Nammour, Fadi Baki, Isabelle Mecattaf, Samir Syriani, Feyrouz Serhal and Wael Noureddine.
"In this uncertain context [in Lebanon], the young generation of filmmakers that does not resort to exile instead resorts to inexpensive techniques such as video," writes Sarah Momesso, a member of the festival's National Selection Committee. "This is how an entire culture of video art, at the crossroads of experimental film and documentary film, has taken root in Lebanon."
Abla Kandalaft, one of the festival's moderators, told The New Arab that short films, as a medium, give Lebanese filmmakers more freedom and independence. "Shorts are cheaper to produce, they can be made guerrilla-style, they can be much more experimental, it is easier to get co-productions on board, and they allow a bigger breadth of stories," she said.

The Lebanese program's poster was drawn by Lebanese artist Brahim Samaha, a painter and engraver who is also the founder of Beirut's Cabriolet Film Festival, ongoing in the capital since 2010. Samah is attending Clermont-Ferrand ISFF, with work on display in the "Anatomy of the Lab" exhibition, which will be held at the Lieu-Dit.
Clermont-Ferrand ISFF first started in 1979 and has been the biggest short film festival in the world for 40 years. From Jan. 31 to Feb. 8, more than 500 films from about 80 countries will be showing in the small French city of the same name from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. across eleven different locations. The festival attracts an average 170,000 attendees annually.
In 2023, Laurent Wauquiez, member of the French political party The Republicans and then-president of the regional council for Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, cut funding going to the "Sauve qui peut le court métrage" association that oversees the festival in half. Since then, organizers have been forced to implement budget-sensitive measures and work within a significantly reduced financial framework.