“Maskoon,” the first-ever online Lebanese film festival will take place this month. And the best part is: It’s completely free to watch!
The Maskoon (Haunted) Fantastic Film Festival is a horror/sci-fi-themed festival that will be streamed entirely on the Internet in June.
It will allow viewers to watch Lebanese, Arabic, and International titles that had recently been on display in various film festivals across the world.
In addition to the screening of numerous horror, dark comedy, romance, and sci-fi movies, the event will include a series of lectures and workshops to promote the skills related to the sci-fi/horror theme of cinema.
The Maskoon Festival will also feature discussions with experts and filmmakers, as well as a Lebanese short film competition.
Dariush Derakhshani is one of the experts that will make an appearance in the online event.
He is an award-winning visual effects (VFX) artist, author, and educator whose work has appeared in major Hollywood productions, including Apocalypto, The Fantastic Four, Pan’s Labyrinth, South Park, and others.
The festival will take place in parallel to the “Maskoon Fantastic Lab,” which is the first platform dedicated to genre films in the region. The Lab aims to promote the production of Arabic genre films.
The 4th edition of Maskoon, which is the upcoming one, was supposed to take place in November 2019, but the instability of Lebanon back then forced its organizers to postpone it.
The reality in Lebanon and the world at this time “has become more terrifying than fiction,” Myriam Sassine, the executive director of the festival, has said in a comment on the upcoming event.
As such, in light of the health, economic, and social crises, the organizers of the film festival find it necessary to resist these dilemmas with culture and entertainment to help people forget their troubles, if for a short while.
“As reality has surpassed fiction, entertainment and culture helped people maintain their sanity and hold on to each other, keeping human connections ongoing,” said Beirut DC, one of the organizers of the event.
The 4th edition of the Maskoon Fantastic Film Festival will take place online between June 10th and June 16th.