Festivals

Maskoon – Fantastic Film Festival 2016

From Sep 14 to Sep 18, 2016
Villa Paradiso

Since the heydays of 1970s, genre film has become a well established school of in its own right, exploring a wide variety of subjects, ranging from the social, political and philosophical.
These films have drawn a wide range of viewership, and more importantly, have been visited by some of the most established names in cinema. From Stanley Kubrick to Quentin Tarantino, film masters, old and young, have always found genre film to be fertile ground to explore their signature themes in a vibrant new context.

Being exposed to this Cinema in the Middle East has been somewhat limited. The vast majority of these films that are screened in the region are American commercial fares, overlooking the wide spectrum of genre films available across the globe, many of which are far more ambitious, highly entertaining and aesthetically original in their scope.
Genre film has become a staple of all major international festivals. With rapidly growing young audience hungry for alternative film, for a cinema different from what’s cramming the multiplexes, the Maskoon Fantastic Film Festival is founded to fill in the gap. The first of its kind in the region, Maskoon — which means haunted in Arabic — is the only festival in the region focusing exclusively on modern genre film, bringing the best horror, thriller, fantasy and action films from around the globe to Beirut and, by default, to the Arab World.

Over the past decade, the Arab World has witnessed a hike in genre films that hit a chord with their local audience but failed to travel outside their homelands. A primary objective of Maskoon is to act as a showcase for the latest genre films in the region and highlight their developments; to create a space for Arab filmmakers, technicians and genre film affectionados to meet, debate and possibly collaborate in the future.

On the long run, Maskoon is aiming to become a regional franchise, unrestricted to Beirut. The strong connections the team behind the fest has with art-house cinemas across the Arab World shall take
Maskoon’s films everywhere in the region: from Cairo and Dubai to Tunis and Jordan. The carefully-curated program and the passion of Arab moviegoers have for genre film shall render Maskoon International Film Fest the hottest film happening in the region.

For more information
03.447.213
maskoonfantasticfest@gmail.com