Nadine Labaki, world-famous Lebanese director and actor and Lebanon’s pride, released a video on November 18th, calling it Keep Talking About Beirut.
The video is an emotional recap of the Beirut explosion that took place on the 4th of August with a narration that can only be described as aching.
The narration, voiced by Cate Blanchett, is a reminder of the terror that took place, stressing that the disaster was not natural but manmade and the largest non-nuclear explosion.
Calling it a “crime against all humanity,” Nadine reminds us that the explosion wasn’t a political battle, but rather a moral and ethical one and that no one should stay silent about it. It calls for people around the world to speak and demand justice for Lebanon and the people of Beirut who deserve to know the truth.
The video concludes with a call for people to donate to Beirut, and donate in any way they can.
The significance of the video is to remind people that the event that took place is not something that should be looked over, but rather brought up, kept in mind, and spoken of, in order to create an investigation that will yield justice.
Nadine Labaki, the first Lebanese and middle eastern woman director to be nominated for an Oscar, has been Lebanon’s pride on several occasions.
She graduated from Beirut’s Saint Joseph University with a degree in audiovisual arts after winning several prizes throughout her studying years. She then got international recognition when her short film 11 Rue Pasteur won the Best Short Film Award at the Biennale of Arab Cinema at the Institut du Monde Arabe (Paris) in 1998.
From then on, Nadine’s fame began to gain more and more momentum until she finally released her movie Capernaum that took the world by storm, and was nominated for the Oscars, sky-rocketing her name internationally.
