‘My Father is Still a Communist’ to screen at NVICinema

CAIRO – 3 March 2018: The 2011 intimate documentary “My Father is Still a Communist, Intimate Secrets to be Published” by Ahmad Ghossein will screen at NVICinema on March 18.

Set in Lebanon, the film reveals the personal details of Ghossein’s family, focusing both on his titular father, Rashid Ghossein, and his mother, Mariam. Supporting four children on her own after her husband went to work abroad, Mariam was only able to communicate with Rachid through personal letters and audio-cassettes, which now serve as pieces of a lost past and relationship spanning ten years, following the height of the Lebanese Civil War. The film was commissioned by the Sharjah Art Foundation.

Ahmad in his youth imagined his father as a communist war hero, and the director uses old photographs and footage, such as from his parent’s wedding, to create a solemn, moving testament to the past.

Ghossein was born in Beirut in 1981 and trained to become a filmmaker, video artist and performer at the Lebanese University, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in theater arts. He won the 2004 Best Director Prize at the Beirut International Film Festival for his short film “Operation N”, and “My Father is Still a Communist” received a special mention at the 2011 Tribeca Doha film festival.

Some of his other works include the 2008 documentary “An Arab Comes to Town” and “What Does Not Resemble Me Looks Exactly Like Me” in 2009.

Ghossein is also a visual artist whose work has been exhibited in various museums around the world, such as the Museum of Modern Art, the New Museum in New York and the Sharjah Art Foundation, while his films have been screened in multiple film festivals.

He was awarded the Ibsen scholarship award in 2013 and the Production Program Award from the Sharjah Art Foundation in 2014. Ghossein is also one of the founders of the Maqamat Dance Theater in Beirut and one of the co-curators of the CO2 artistic platform, also in Beirut.