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FOUAD ELKOURY RETROSPECTIVE

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11 films in package
Lettres à Francine
The film is based on photographs taken during a two-year stay in Turkey and a sound-track relating the trip within the country. Interwoven with this narrative are images and conversations portraying the author’s illness, which was diagnosed upon his return. This is an intimate film that plays with the layering of sounds and images.
Lettres à Huguette
The film is about Huguette Caland, a Lebanese painter who emigrated to France in the 1970s and later to L.A. She talks about herself and her practice. The author, a close parent of Caland, parallels her life and the crisis Lebanon goes through in 2019, followed by the pandemic that hit the country. This is an intimate film that plays with the layering of sounds and images.
Atlantis
A diaporama featuring Arafat traveling aboard a Greek ship that was to take him from Beirut to Athens in August-September 1982.
Jours tranquilles en Palestine
Of Palestine, we know the violence and the suffering. This film tells another story: the story of pre-Israeli society happily living on its land. Using old photographs found by the Arab Image Foundation and the voice of 5 women who were born in Palestine before 1948, the film recalls ordinary moments of life.
Civil war, the film
A film on the post-war period. A man and a woman are in a museum and remember; Two intellectuals discuss during a boat trip. All speak of the war, and by extension, of wars that city people experience, heavy shelling, desperate running, shelters…
Nothing to lose
The loss is at the heart of this video work. It is the story of Palestine, of the mother, of the beloved, of convictions. All structured around a poem, One Art by Elisabeth Bishop and a book, The book of darkness by Samir Khaddaje.
Welcome to Beirut
Welcome to Beirut is about daily life: driving in the city, going to the hairdresser, discussions with the grocer, visiting a motor show, a wax museum, dining out… It is a driven promenade inside the city with a few open windows through which to peep in. More ironic than sarcastic, the film reveals the state of mind of a certain Lebanese society, a direct consequence of the atlas syndrome: When one opens a European atlas of the world, Lebanon is in the middle but also in the crack, central yet invisible.
On war and love
This is the story of an intimate journal composed of pictures and words, series of pictures and letters to the loved one, throughout the 33 days war in between Israel and Lebanon.
Re: Visiting Tarab
In 2011, under the generic name of “Visiting Tarab”, Tarek Atoui invited some musicians to perform together in two separate concerts, one in New York and one in Sharjah. A few musicians also chose to take part in a preliminary research phase led by Kamal Kassar on Arab traditional music at his Foundation Amar’s premises in Lebanon. The film Re-Visiting Tarab retraces those moments, between Lebanon, New York, and Sharjah, when things were still in an early phase. Since then, more concerts have taken place around the world.
Moving Out
The film portrays the separation of a family. The mother and two children move out of a house while the father stays on, alone. The action takes place over two days, the time for the house to be emptied of its furniture. There is no reference to a happy past, the tension rises from the mere packing of the objects.
The wandering myth
This video features the opening of an exhibition by Rober Frank in Madrid. It was shot in one day in June 2001, without the intention of making a film, but rather of recalling a moment. It shows Robert Frank at a cocktail party given at the Museu Nacional Centro de ArteReina Sofia and later, with his friends having dinner.
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As a child in the 1960s, Lebanese artist Fouad Elkoury picked up his father's camera and began taking pictures. His quotidian approach to quietly capturing life around him developed into a surmounting collection of images and video works that trace the intimacies of living through civil war, displacement, and political uprising across the Middle East through the turn of the century. Returning to his images over time, Elkoury has produced an iconic style of video works that is both playful and sincere.


This retrospective screening brings together Elkoury's extensive filmography including short films such as Jours Tranquilles en Palestine (1998) and Nothing to lose (2019) which preserve everyday stories of Palestinian love. His ongoing trilogy of experimental films Lettres à Francine (2002) and Lettres à Huguette (2021), soon to be joined by Lettres à Etel (unreleased), challenge conventions of still image-based filmmaking, captivating viewers with long-format storytelling reminiscent of a visit to a loved one. Here, stories of the 2019 popular uprising in Lebanon join memories of the civil war, recalling earlier works On war and love (2019), Civil war, the film (2012), and Welcome to Beirut (2005). Elkoury's films are multi-sensory reflections on how it feels to navigate relationships with places, loved ones, and self, amidst dark contexts. 

Welcome to Beirut (2005)

Welcome to Beirut is about daily life: driving in the city, going to the hairdresser, discussions with the grocer, visiting a motor show, a wax museum, dining out… It is a driven promenade inside the city with a few open windows through which to peep in. More ironic than sarcastic, the film reveals the state of mind of a certain Lebanese society, a direct consequence of the atlas syndrome: When one opens a European atlas of the world, Lebanon is in the middle but also in the crack, central yet invisible.


About the Filmmaker

Born in 1952 in Paris, Fouad Elkoury began his artistic career by photographing Beirut during the civil war, exploring issues of survival in a war-torn city. Far from being a report of everyday life, his pictures bear the necessity of withstanding time, as underlined in his publication Beyrouth Aller-Retour (1984), and later by a postwar work, Beirut City Centre (1992), widely exhibited, and published in a book that became a landmark in the history of photography. Accounting for how to live in war zones while at the same time keeping a distance from everyday life, marks his work, as can be seen in Palestine, l'envers du miroir (1996), Liban Provisoire (1998), or in his fictional narrative Suite Egyptienne (1999). 


After co-founding the Arab Image Foundation in Beirut, Elkoury questioned the purpose of single photographic images, away from aestheticism. His later works elaborate composite visuals to create new meanings, combining still photography, text and video. His Paris exhibition Sombres with its filmed counterpart Letters to Francine (2002), revolves around wounds; On war and love (2006), shown at the Venice Biennale, reflects on the dimension of intimacy in wartime. 

  • Year
    2005
  • Runtime
    45 mins.
  • Language
    Arabic, French
  • Country
    Lebanon
  • Subtitle Language
    English
  • Director
    Fouad Elkoury
  • Editor
    Maria Gamboa, Catherine Quesemand
  • Sound Design
    Romain Frydman
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