Banned Films in Lebanon

In Beirut Hotel , Zoha, a Lebanese nightclub singer, and Mathieu, a Frenchman on a business trip who may or may not be a spy, repeatedly get together in Mathieu's hotel room in Beirut and have raunchy sex. The film, the third feature by the Lebanese director Danielle Arbid, was banned in her home country.

The reason: not so much the erotic scenes as one the film's subplots, which concerns the 2005 assassination of the former Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri, which is an explosive topic in the country. The censors claimed that the film's depiction of the political situation would endanger Lebanon's security.

The Lebanese have only been able to watch the film by satellite (it aired on the cable channel Arte; some one million viewers tuned in), but it's been making the festival rounds around the world.

Beirut Hotel presents a cosmopolitan yet hostile country where citizens and visitors alike are constantly watched and monitored, where news of kidnappings rule the airways, and people are silenced (read: murdered) for political reasons.

Danielle Arbid has had to battle the Lebanese censors for all three of her feature films. According to the New York Times, following the decree that banned Beirut Hotel, the filmmaker moved to France in disgust.

The Attack is a 2012 Lebanon/France/Qatar/Belgium drama by Ziad Doueiri.
With Ali Suliman, Evgenia Dodena, Reymond Amsalem.

Lebanese censors have banned the award-winning movie The Attack from being shown in the country because its Lebanese director shot part of the movie in Israel and used Israeli actors.

Director Ziad Doueiri explained the ban on his Facebook page:

I regret to inform you that the interior minister of Lebanon, Minister Charbel, has decided to punish us and the film by banning it. The reason for the rejection is that I, Ziad Doueiri, had spent time in Israel filming.

The Ministry [of Culture said it had nothing against the film, but that it wasn't 'Lebanese enough.' They also said they could not have a film with Israeli actors represent Lebanon at the Oscars. I knew from the start it was a lost cause.

All this does in the end is portray Lebanon in a negative light, and tell us, filmmakers, that we if think outside of the box, we 'll be considered pariahs and outlaws.

The film is about an Arab surgeon in a Tel Aviv hospital who finds out that his wife died in a suicide bombing. The film won the Special Jury Award at the 2012 San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain and the Golden Star at Morocco's Marrakesh Film Festival.