Danielle Arbid

Danielle Arbid
Born
Danielle Arbid

Beirut, Lebanon
CitizenshipFrench
OccupationFilm director

Danielle Arbid is a French filmmaker of Lebanese origin who has been directing films since 1997.

Her work has been selected for numerous film festivals, including Cannes Film Festival, Toronto FF, New York FF, San Francisco, Locarno Festival, Busan and San Sebastián Film Festival. Danielle Arbid's Simple Passion, her fourth feature, was listed in the Cannes official selection, in 2020. Her first two features, Dans les champs de bataille [fr] and Un homme perdu, were screened at the Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Festival in 2004 and in 2007, as well as in around thirty other festivals, picking up numerous awards, including the Directors' Fortnight Prize and the Milan Grand Prize or the Reflet d’Or at Cinéma-tout-écran, Genève.

Her documentaries and other filmed essays have been given an excellent reception and won dozens of awards including the Gold Leopard for Conversations de Salon at the Locarno Festival and the Silver Leopard also at the Locarno Festival for video for Seule avec la Guerre in 2001 and 2004 respectively, as well as the Albert Londres Prize, and the Villa Medici Hors les murs Award for Aux Frontières.

Danielle Arbid is representing Lebanon at the 2022 Edition of the 59th Venice Biennale.[1][2] - The Lebanese pavilion has been nominated as one of the "Top 15 Pavilions not-to-be-missed" by the Financial Times, Le Monde,[3] the Art Newspaper[4] and the Quotidien de l'Art.[5][6][7]

Early life and education

Danielle Arbid left Lebanon at the height of the civil war in 1987, at the age of 17, to study literature at the Sorbonne University in Paris, France.[8] She also studied journalism.

Career

She directed her first short Raddem and the documentary Seule avec la guerre (1999).[9] Having never studied film in school, Arbid says her inspiration comes from "art, photography, people in the street and of course film".[10]

Her first three Conversation de Salon I-III where featured at the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria[11] and received the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival. Interested in different narrative forms, her work alternates between; fiction, first person documentaries and video essays; with an experimentation of the intersecting of genres. She was one of the founding members of the Lebanese film festival Né à Beyrouth in 2001.[12]

In 2011, Danielle Arbid also directed the Beirut Hotel TV-movie for Arte aired during prime time, becoming one of the channel's most popular fiction broadcasts in 2012.[13]

Her third fiction feature, Parisienne won the Académie Lumière foreign press prize, as well as other awards including the Best Actress prize at Les Arcs in 2016. Parisienne (film) had its world première at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Simple Passion is her fourth feature film.[9] It's an adaptation from the major French writer Annie Ernauxs best-seller book. Simple Passion was selected by the Cannes Film Festival in 2020.[14] It was also selected in the San Sebastián International Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, Zurich Film Festival, Busan International Film Festival, Les Arcs Film Festival, Lisboa & Cintra Film Festival, and the Lumière Festival. Simple Passion obtained rave reviews from the international press - including The Telegraph,[15] the Guardian,[16] TimeOut,[17] Culture Fix,[18] Sight and Sound,[19] Film Hounds,[20] Film Threat.[21]

Five retrospectives have been held around Danielle Arbid's films at the Gijón International Film Festival in 2007, Bastia Festival in 2007, Paris Cinéma in 2007, the Festival de la Fiction at La Rochelle, France, in 2008 and Festival Dei Popoli Florence in 2016.

Her videos were presented at the Centre Pompidou, the Vienna Museum of Art, the MAC VAL, Fondation Boghossian (Belgium), and the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes (France).

In 2018, she also directed Le Feu au cœur, a short film for the Paris Opéra.[22]

A documentary about her work titled "Danielle Arbid, un chant de bataille" was produced in 2017 in the prestigious collection "Cinéastes de notre temps" created by André S. Labarthe, former critic of Cahiers du Cinéma.

As an actress, she has worked in few films, including The Apaches [fr] (2013) and Repair the Living [fr] (2015).

She is also an art photographer who exhibited at numerous galleries, including the Galerie Cinéma in Paris, Photomed Beirut, and Rouge L'Expo.

Filmography

  • 1998: Raddem (Short, fiction,17')
  • 1999: Le passeur (Short, fiction, 13')
  • 2000: Seule avec la guerre [60'] (documentary)
  • 2002: Étrangère (Fiction, 46')
  • 2002: Aux frontières [60'](Documentary)
  • 2004: In the battlefields (Feature)
  • 2004: Nous / Nihna [2004, 13']
  • 2004: Conversation de Salon 1, 2 et 3 [3x10']
  • 2007: A lost man (Feature)
  • 2008: This smell of sex [21']
  • 2009: Conversation de salon 4, 5 et 6 [3x10']
  • 2011: Beirut Hotel [99'] ( TV Feature)
  • 2015: Parisienne (Peur de rien) (Premiere in TIFF)
  • 2020: Simple Passion

Awards and recognition

See also

References

  1. ^ "The artist duo Danielle Arbid and Ayman Baalbaki will represent Lebanon at the 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia". 2 February 2022.
  2. ^ "Biennale Arte 2022 | National Participations". 15 April 2022.
  3. ^ "La Biennale de Venise met les femmes à l'honneur". Le Monde.fr (in French). 22 April 2022.
  4. ^ "Venice Biennale 2022: the must-see pavilions in the Arsenale". The Art Newspaper - International art news and events. 20 April 2022.
  5. ^ Foster, Kristina; Dawood, Dalia (14 April 2022). "What not to miss in and around the Venice Biennale". Financial Times.
  6. ^ "Danielle Arbid et Ayman Baalbaki au pavillon libanais". Le Quotidien de l'Art (in French).
  7. ^ "Hors-série du 16 avril 2022". Le Quotidien de l'Art (in French). Retrieved 18 April 2022.
  8. ^ iniva | Danielle Arbid Profile | http://www.iniva.org/library/archive/people/a/arbid_danielle Archived 2014-12-22 at the Wayback Machine
  9. ^ a b Vaillant, Luc Le; Bonnet, photo Jérôme. "Danielle Arbid, passion compliquée". Libération.
  10. ^ "Interview with Danielle Arbid". Archived from the original on 29 October 2016. Retrieved 30 April 2019.
  11. ^ "gangart". www.gangart.org. Retrieved 30 April 2019.
  12. ^ Westmoreland, Mark Ryan (2008). Crisis of Representation: Experimental Documentary in Postwar Lebanon. Austin: University of Texas. pp. 164–165.
  13. ^ "La censure fait a nouveau des siennes: le film Beirut Hotel de Danielle Arbid interdit de projection". L'Orient-Le Jour. 18 June 2012. Archived from the original on 18 June 2012.
  14. ^ Arbid, Danielle (22 September 2020). "Danielle Arbid • Director of Simple Passion". Cineuropa. Interviewed by Lemercier, Fabien. Retrieved 20 January 2024.
  15. ^ Robey, Tim (4 February 2021). "Simple Passion, review: Sergei Polunin steams up a Fifty Shades with Gallic soul". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 18 April 2022.
  16. ^ "Simple Passion review – sensitive French study of erotic obsession". The Guardian. 3 February 2021. Retrieved 18 April 2022.
  17. ^ Oliver, Huw. "Simple Passion review: A probing character study of a woman lost in lust". Time Out Worldwide. Retrieved 18 April 2022.
  18. ^ "Danielle Arbid – Culture Fix". Retrieved 18 April 2022.
  19. ^ "Simple Passion review: a woman in the thrall of love". Sight and Sound.
  20. ^ "Submissive Fantasia – Simple Passion (Film Review)". Filmhounds Magazine. 15 January 2021. Retrieved 18 April 2022.
  21. ^ "Simple Passion | Film Threat". 26 March 2022.
  22. ^ "Le feu au cœur - Danielle Arbid - 3e Scène". l'Opéra chez soi.

Bibliography

  • Cinéma de Notre Temps : Danielle Arbid – Un chant de bataille — Cinéma du Réel [archive]
  • Armes, Roy. "Danielle Arbid." Arab Filmmakers of the Middle East: A Dictionary. Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP, 2010. 68–69.
  • Hillauer, Rebecca. Encyclopedia of Arab Women Filmmakers. Cairo: American University in Cairo, 2005. 142–143.
  • Westmoreland, Mark Ryan. Crisis of Representation: Experimental Documentary in Postwar Lebanon. University of Texas, 2008 164-165