A documentary on Lebanon by Australian-Lebanese filmmaker Daizy Gedeon has been honored with the Movie That Matters Award 2021 at the Cannes Film Festival.
ENOUGH! Lebanon’s Darkest Hour (2021) follows Gedeon’s personal and independent introspection into Lebanon’s deterioration over the years into the state of complete catastrophe that it is in today.
The film sheds light on how corruption has plunged the proud Lebanese people into poverty and misery, and sees Gedeon come to terms with the painful truth about her ancestral homeland.
Gedeon began working on the film in 2016 after years of watching the Lebanese people’s growing poverty, frustration, and dissent for the status quo.
“I had regularly returned to my ancestral homeland since I released my debut film, Lebanon…Imprisoned Splendour, in 1996 which addressed the misperception of Lebanon, as portrayed by the western media, as a land of terror, car bombings and kidnappings because of the 15 year civil war from 1975-1990,” she said in her director’s statement.
“But over the next 20 years, instead of seeing strides in growth and development, hope and opportunity, I experienced anger, desperation, and hopelessness among the people who were being forced to endure a system that couldn’t even provide reliable basic services and infrastructure – no roads, no clean water, no electricity, no garbage collection, no jobs, no justice…”
The Movie that Matters Award is a rare honor handed by filmfestivals.com to filmmakers with a strong, inspiring message. Only a few films have received this award since its creation in 2016.
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