The 12th International Film Festival of NDU University took place from November 25th to December 2nd. Located 12 kilometres north of Beirut, in Zouk Mosbeh, and founded in 2007, this festival of short films remained faithful to its original theme: “The power of youth” – promoting young directors by showing their films to a wider audience.
The festival shows Lebanese and international films in three categories: drama, documentary and animation. Audiences watched nearly 80 films in competition, all made by young graduates and independent directors.
The university hosting the festival has an auditorium for operas seating 650, and another seating 400. More than 5,000 people came to see the films, including 50 guests from around the world.
As well as becoming a centre for script and film development, the festival set itself the goal of providing proper financial support for independent film-makers. In 2015 founder and director Sam Lahoud created a fund to do just that: “Young people have stories to tell, and an inner voice pushing them to fight for their freedom; these stories can be collected, stored and used as tools to shape a better society.”
The programme and the films in competition can be found here.
