Great Film Directors Talking about Theirt Art
(and that of Other Directors)
Monday Talk: 7 April 2025
7 pm (Beirut Time GMT+3)
Presenter: Akram Najjar (English)
Click To Register
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The Talk
For some strange reason, film directors find it easier to
talk about their art and practice than others such as composers, novelists,
poets and painters.
This talk consist of a collection of short talks where
directors talk about their art, give advice and sometimes talk about other
directors and their influence.
Such greats will be included such as Fellini, Tarkovsky,
Kiarostami, Ingmar Bergman, Kurosawa, Alan Resnais, Sidney Lumet, Wim Wender,
Sergei Paradjanov, Coppola and others.
This is not a ranking but a random selection of video clips.
Where possible, subtitles will be included.
When Karaz w Laimoon was conducting events “on the ground”,
cinema was chief amongst its activities, often resulting in 2 screenings a
week. Zoom cannot compete with a seated audience. Only once did KWL have a
cinema talk which was on the 20th of June, 2022. The talk was about
Ingmar Bergman’s wonderful film: “Persona”.
Here the video clips we will be screening (note that this list is almost final . . . )
A graduate of AUB in Physics and Mathematics (1966). By 1969, he completed a degree in Electronic Engineering in University of Hertfordshire, UK. His professional life was spent in Information Technology and organizational management. He spent a lot of time on reengineering business and public sector processes.
When Akram was 11, he had a problem with his knee which necessitated his staying in bed for 6 months. To keep him busy, his mother moved their record player to his room and that is when he fell in love with classical music. Akram never studied music, academically. However, it interested him so much that he took an analytic view of classical music always insisting that works must be understood to be really appreciated.
Based on his love for science and mathematics, he got involved in puzzles, recreational mathematics and kept up to date with scientific findings.
As for cinema, once when Akram was 16 years old, immersed in
existential philosophy and literature, a cousin took him to watch “La Notte”
directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. Never in his life did he imagine that
cinema would be other than love stories, Westerns, police stories and history.
This film added another intense interest in his life, an interest that never
left him.
