It struck me as morbid irony to read about justifications in diplomatic circles of the current carnage in Gaza that apparently make reference to the atomic bomb. Apparently, these references have shocked the sensibilities of the American interlocuters who leaked those conversations. Apparently, they’d forgotten who unleashed this moral stain on the history of mankind in the first place. A shocking reference point and a mirror to blink back at.
We are still living in the long shadow of WWII. These claims of self-preservation; this righteous indignation; these dying and dead — they are a legacy of that monstrous era.
But the war to end all wars did nothing of the sort. A people were massacred and displaced to make room for a nuclear state claimed as recompense to a people massacred and displaced. And now, the half-life of these fateful choices seems to outlast even the most radioactive of elements.
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In the midst of all that’s going on, I find hope in our tiny enclaves of creativity and compassion. That’s why I’m really grateful to be working with @uraniumfilm to bring this festival on “all nuclear issues and the whole nuclear fuel chain” to @nwfilmforum this spring.
The dates are finally set: April 13 and 14 with a special screening of “The Atomic Cafe” on Friday, April 12 to set the tone. Of course, there’ll be more official announcements closer to the time, but I want you guys to mark your calendars from now.
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Working on this film festival brings me full circle to what I wanted to do with my life when I was thirteen. By 2000, vague celluloid dreams became a determination to study media arts after joining my mother in the back of a television van at the southern border of Lebanon and seeing what a lens and a mic could do. I still have a chunk of melted glass back home taken from a busted Merkava she’d come across within days of liberation.
But five years later, art felt pointless as car bombs became a near-daily occurrence in Beirut. I needed rigorous tools to combat the production of ignorance. I took more and more classes in sociology, philosophy, and cultural studies and ended up moving towards media studies instead. There was a war waging, and no one had time for my pretty pictures or poignant stories.
The universe seemed to remind me of that in the summer of 2006, when the Dahyeh doctrine that we see at play once again in Gaza today was unleashed on Beirut in the middle of time running around with an Arriflex at NYU. I felt guilty and dumb. But I was cared for and allowed to express my angst on 16mm in spite of myself. I still have those cans in a plastic bag somewhere back home.
All that rigor I chose for myself or was chosen for me almost broke me. But art was there to pick me back up. Art won’t save us, but it sure as hell can try.