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Mohamed Soueid came of age in the Beirut of the early 1970s, when over forty movie theaters were operating in the Lebanese capital, offering lovers of cinema something possibly unique in terms of geo-artistic variety. Not only could Lebanese moviegoers watch the latest European and American films, both arthouse and commercial, but thanks to very active cultural centers (often attached to foreign embassies) and ciné-clubs in Beirut, people could watch films from all over the Arab World, from India, Bulgaria, Armenia, Yugoslavia, Hong Kong, Iran, Czechoslovakia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Cuba, Romania, the Soviet Union, and more. Unable to study film abroad like many of his Lebanese colleagues, Soueid worked with commercial directors like Samir Ghoussainy, first as clapper loader, then as a continuity editor, and eventually as an assistant director. Before completing his first feature as a director, ABSENCE (1990), Soueid worked as a film critic for the Lebanese press and wrote two books on cinema, “Postponed Cinema – Lebanese Films During the Civil War” (1986) and “O Heart – A Film Autobiography on the Late Movie Theatres Of Old Beirut” (1996). In 1993 he started working for Tele Liban and he is currently the head of the documentary department at Al Arabiya News Channel.
Though often personal, the cinema of Mohamed Soueid is never onanistic. On the contrary, his passions, obsessions, and observations are orchestrated through a panoply of voices, characters, and (unrelated) circumstances. The director’s voice is polyphonous, obliquely counter-intuitive. Even when interviewing other people, something Soueid excels at, he is always telling us something about himself. His films are almost devoid of biographical elements and yet radiate visions and fragments of his life. Contrary to dominant trends, inclusivity in the cinema of Mohamed Soueid is not a performance but a reality. Which is why it is pointless to even categorize his films as either fiction or documentary, for their material hospitality makes labels superfluous. His cinema simply is. It is the organic and therefore incoherent incarnation of his unfiltered curiosity, of his convivial friendships and his boundless love for cinema.
There is no room for completist hubris in Soueid’s cinephilia, for he does not memorialize the films of his life but voluptuously incorporate them in it. Virtually all his films contain human traces of the erudite passion he has for the Seventh Art, be it the testimony of a Beiruti projectionist or the memories of a Shia cleric recalling his first viewing of the original, 1958 version of THE FLY. Rather than proceeding through linear, consequential narratives, his cinema is traversed by cyclical returns. In NIGHTFALL, the past is at once exhumed and exorcized, while in CINEMA FOUAD it is present(ed) in the beauty of ever-changing identities. Soueid’s direction is neither omniscient nor omnipotent; he does not pretend or even try to resolve the contradictions his films contain (as is suggested by the title of his most recent film, THE INSOMNIA OF A SERIAL DREAMER). He is not even afraid to expose his own fragility, as a man and a filmmaker. Something so very rare in the cinema of all ages and places.
The MOHAMED SOUEID RETROSPECTIVE is co-presented by ArteEast and Anthology Film Archives and guest-curated by Giovanni Vimercati, who wrote the introduction and (unless otherwise noted) the individual film descriptions. This series is part of the legacy program “Unpacking the ArteArchive,” which preserves and presents over 17 years of film and video programming by ArteEast. In addition to the in-person, theatrical screenings at Anthology, the series will be presented on artearchive.org from March 3-13. For more information, visit artearchive.org.