Film | The Guardian: While the people of Benghazi were ejecting the Islamist militias from their city last Saturday, another smaller but equally remarkable event was taking place 400 miles away in Tripoli. In the former French embassy, in the old part of the city, some 70 people were attending the first public screening of Libyan-made films since last year's revolution (and possibly a long time before that). There were just six short documentaries, around five minutes each. In the final film, Granny's Flags, a Tripoli grandmother recounted how, during the revolution, women had to bake bread before the electricity ran out, and how she'd been kept busy sewing makeshift versions of Libya's reinstated national flag. "We are happy that Muammar died … He used to smother us," she says, before telling off Libya's toppled dictator as if he were her own son: "Gaddafi, Gaddafi, Gaddaaaaafi. We got rid of him." And she spreads her hands as if clearing him off the table. The audience burst into spontaneous applause.
2 comments:
I think it is really wonderful that Libyans are experiencing pieces of newfound freedom in their ability to make and screen documentaries. We are so lucky to live in a country where people can put on plays and movies that can be "anti-government" or even just shine a light on issues that should be known to the public.
A woman featured in one of the 5 minute documentaries says, "We are happy that Muammar died … He used to smother us". It is really wonderful that this population is able to experience such freedoms. Films can express the lifting of oppression from a nation.
It makes me happy to see that in the wake of the fall of a country's leader, that the people saw it important to create art in their time of confusion. It speaks to the ideals of the craft to promote self-expression and criticism of life. Maybe if we're lucky this will lead to Libyan Restoration Comedies, I'd pay money to see THAT.
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