Catherine Deneuve puts spotlight on Lebanon at MEIFF

French actress Catherine Deneuve highlighted the humanitarian concerns facing war-ravaged Lebanon at Cinema Verite – a thought-provoking event held on the sidelines of the Middle East International Film Festival (MEIFF) in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday evening.

Lebanon was pummeled for 33 days on end by Israel in the 2006 war. Two years on, the country is still battling with unexploded cluster bombs and landmines, which continue to take a heavy toll of lives.

Catherine’s upcoming movie, ‘Je Veux Voir’, filmed entirely in a devastated southern Lebanon village, is a chilling account of the horror the war has left in its wake.

Recounting her experience while shooting for the movie Catherine said that what she saw left her “paralysed”.

“Seeing images of war on TV is one thing, being in the middle of one is another. What I saw is difficult to describe in words. How do you express what goes through your mind when you see shoes and baby toys lying around a crumbling building that would have once been a house,” said Catherine, who was also the Guest of Honour at the event.

Fawzi Fawaz, Ambassador of Lebanon in the UAE, Stephane Jaquemet, United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees’ Representative (UNHCR) to Lebanon and Phillipe Aractingi, director of the critically-acclaimed movie ‘Under the Bombs’ also participated in the debate, which was hosted by Joel Soler, Founding President, Cinema Verite Institute.

CLEAR, PRESENT DANGER

Southern Lebanon has been cleared of thousands of cluster bombs and landmines but an unaccountable number of them still remain, posing a grave threat to the citizens.

“Everyday lives are being lost because of these bombs. Our main priority is to clear the rest of the area and stop these deaths, “said Fawaz.

Jaqeumet stressed on the importance of celebrity involvement in advancing social and humanitarian issues.

“It is extremely important to have celebrities to help us. We can’t achieve much if we are left on our own. “We have the technical knowledge to tackle a humanitarian crisis, but without a voice, it has no effect. Celebs could be our voice for such causes,” he said.

“Lebanese people have been displaced again and again. Today, 33 years after the Civil War, there are many who still haven’t returned,” he added.

The UN representative also highlighted the plight of the 4,00,00 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon

“At UNHCR, we are made to believe that being a refugee is a temporary problem. But the Palestinians in Lebanon have been refugees for three generations now. How can one convince a mother or a grandmother who’s been living as refugee for years that her problem is just temporary. It is therefore important to have movies like ‘Under the Bombs’ because it gives the true picture of what’s happening in Lebanon.”

Interestingly, ‘Under the Bombs’ is largely made of actual footage from the war. “We wanted to show the world what happened to us,” said Aractingi. “I make movies because that’s the only thing I can do Whether movies have the power to move the conscience of people, I don’t know. But I can’t see people stopping wars because of my movies. I doubt if Mr Bush would watch my movie,” he added.