Documentary portrays artists in Lebanon dealing with social upheaval

posted on: Jun 26, 2015

In a scene in a documentary about conflict-torn Lebanon, the camera pans across new buildings standing next to bullet-ridden structures in the capital city of Beirut.

“What is important is that we do not hide the process through which the scars have been sustained,” said an architect who appears in the film.

Directed by Soraya Umewaka, “Tomorrow We Will See” showcases the energy of people overcoming the uncertainties of what tomorrow holds through their continuous creation of art.

Umewaka, whose father is Japanese and mother is Lebanese, began filming the documentary in 2009. Often traveling between Japan and the Middle East, she spent a total of around 365 days in Lebanon to capture footage for the project.

Lebanon is a melting pot of about 4.4 million people, many of whom belong to one of 18 official religious sects, including the Christian sect of Maronite and the Shiite and Sunni branches of Islam.

Lebanon is bordered by Syria to the north and east, and Israel to the south. The western border of the country sits along the Mediterranean Sea.

Sectarian divisions sparked conflicts in 1975, which continued until 1990.

“I want people to know about the diversity of the Middle East through my film,” Umewaka said.

Umewaka focused on 10 artists in Lebanon, including a popular young male singer who openly claims to have no religion, a female illustrator who is married to a man from a different religious sect, as well as elderly poets. Most of them have firsthand experience of conflicts in the country.

The film’s title, “Tomorrow We Will See,” is a common expression in Arabic, which, according to Umewaka, not only has a positive meaning as in “Tomorrow is another day” in Japanese, but also indicates a speaker’s anxiety over future conflicts.

“Amid uncertainties about the future, the artists continue to create something,” Umewaka said. “I want people to feel through the film the dynamism of people who are trying to overcome sectarian differences and conflicts.”

Masayuki Ishii, a project organizer at Uplink, a theater in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward where “Tomorrow We Will See” has been screened, talked of the significance of watching Umewaka’s film in relation to the Islamic State militant group that has seized large swaths of Iraq and Syria.

“Because much has been reported about the Islamic State, we want people to see the reality in Lebanon and the Middle East through the film,” he said.

Source: ajw.asahi.com