Film Screening: Maroun Bagdadi's We Are All for the Fatherland (1979)

Join us on Tuesday July 14th for a screening of Lebanese filmmaker Maroun Bagdadi's We are All for the Fatherland (1979, 74 minutes), presented by documentary filmmaker Malek Rasamny. Doors at 7, screening at 7:30pm. 414 Broadway, 3rd Floor. “We are All for the Fatherland” is both a glimpse into the early work of one of Lebanon’s best directors, as well as an incredible document from a time in Lebanese history that bears a striking resemblance to the present. This film explores the south of Lebanon in the aftermath of what would be Israel’s first, but far from last, large-scale invasion of Lebanon, 1978’s Operation Litani. Bagdadi's film gives the audience a window into what life was like during the early years of the Lebanese Civil War (1975- 1991), featuring interviews with tobacco farmers, Shia clerics, members of the collaborationist South Lebanese Army, and footage of leaders of the leftist Lebanese National Movement, and the Palestinian Liberation Organization. “We are All for the Fatherland” was made just a few years before the creation of what would become Hezbollah in 1982, as well as the signing of the May 17 agreement of 1983, between Lebanon and Israel. This is often compared to the U.S.–Lebanon–Israel Trilateral Framework Agreement, signed just this month, making this film especially relevant in the context of the decisive historical moment Lebanon is living through -- with the Israeli invasion of the country’s south, the push to disarm Hezbollah, and the potentially unprecedented cooperation between Lebanon’s government and that of Israel.