Beirut International Film Festival

It is with particular enthusiasm that they welcome you this year to the 11th edition of the Beirut International Film Festival.
International cinema, like fine wine, has its particularly good years, and 2011 has been a tremendously rich one. Perhaps even more importantly, it has been a uniquely dynamic year in the long-stultified region. Far from overshadowing our mission, however, the wind of change blowing across the Middle-Eastern political scene only serves to confirm it.
Whether it be the “emergency” festival held in the wake of the July War of 2006, the numerous and often won wars with censorship, or more recently, the first edition of the Forbidden Films Festival, The BIFF has tirelessly fought to promote free speech, alternative views, and fresh angles, in an environment that all too often hung on to the single voice of the status quo. And it will of course continue to do so as the festival enters its second decade, and the Middle East perhaps a new era.

Cinema may be a matter of art, a political tool, a forum for dialogue, but it is also, and perhaps above all, about pleasure. So do sit back, relax, and enjoy this 2011 selection.