In Tout Public on Tuesday, September 24, 2024, the situation in Lebanon seen by Franco-Lebanese filmmaker Danielle Arbid, the theatrical release of Francis Ford Coppolla’s new film, and the winner of the 2024 Fnac prize Marie Vingtras for her book “Les âmes folles”.
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Reading time: 23 min
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French-Lebanese filmmaker Danielle Arbid, who left Beirut at 17 to study in Paris and whose films have been screened at numerous film festivals around the world, reacts to recent events affecting her home country and the growing conflict with Israel.
The director points out Israel’s historical responsibility in the creation of Hezbollah, with the Israeli government relying on a policy that “always wanted to deal with the most radicals.” This strategy allows us to no longer see the other as “civilized”she said. Danielle Arbid does not exonerate Hezbollah either, which she describes as “burden [qui pèse] on Lebanon“, who had his own works and those of his artist friends censored, and even killed or tortured them.
“The Lebanese state is an empty shell”
Danielle Arbidfranceinfo
A conflict from which no one sees any prospect of appeasement, which distresses the director: “What are they? [les Israéliens] want in the long term?” she asks.
The woman who was due to visit her relatives in Lebanon shares their helplessness in the face of the tragedy of which they are victims: “They tell me that they are helpless and afraid, and I wish them all the courage for the days to come.”
In his new extraordinary film MegalopolisCoppolla delivers both a political fable and a futuristic peplum in a retro-futuristic New York. A film with which the director took risks, since it is with his own fortune that he financed it. “As I said in my film, when you jump into the unknown, you prove that you are free.”defends the legend of American cinema. A way for the filmmaker to fully express his creativity, faced with a Hollywood industry that is increasingly reluctant to support projects that go beyond the norms. A film presented in the spring in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, and which will be released in theaters on Wednesday, September 25, 2024.
On the literature side, the first literary prize of the season was awarded to Marie Vingtras, winner of the 2024 Fnac Prize, for her novel The fierce souls. A story that takes place across the Atlantic, a land that greatly inspires the author, where “You can find the most beautiful, the most fascinating and the most terrifying at the same time. It’s almost a dystopia in itself.”she believes.
“It’s a fictional America. It’s not an American novel. It’s a history of America written by a French woman.”
Marie Vingtrasfranceinfo
While the story begins with the mysterious death of a young girl in a small fictional American town, which a sheriff is investigating, be careful not to see this as a detective story. In her novel, Marie Vingtras wanted to explore human ambivalence, and not focus on solving the young girl’s murder.
Sylvie Couvert, bookseller and ambassador of the Fnac Prize, talks about a novel that won over the jury, “of great literary quality, accessible and popular.”
A novel that a jury of 800 readers agreed on, and which we hope will meet with similar success among the rest of the public!