Beirut, at Sunset

On August 4, 2020 a massive explosion ripped through the beleaguered city’s port, killing 218 people and injuring 7,000. The explosion was not an act of terrorism or war but an act of carelessness from which Beirut has still not recovered.

Once a stigmatized dance form, ‘raqs sharqi’ makes a comeback in Lebanon

2022 Elections: Tripoli chooses the sea | انتخابات 2022: طرابلس تختار البحر

Filmed and interviewed.

New vertical farm in Beirut may be the “future of nutrition”

In a vacant parking lot in Furn El Chebbak, some spinach, kale and other greens tranquilly grow in a specially manufactured container. They rise to the sound of classical music, blissfully ignorant of the chaos surrounding them in the buzzing neighborhood on the outskirts of Beirut. 

“It has been scientifically proven that classical music helps plants grow better,” explains Edwin Arida, the Operations Manager of the project.

The container is called Beirut Farm and has a rather peculiar role: It acts as an urban farm in the heart of the city. It falls under the category of vertical farming, and more particularly, Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA).

“Shedding Skin” with the support of Magnum Foundation, Prince Claus Foundation, and AFAC.

AnOther Mag: A Portrait of Beirut: A Year on From the Explosion

365 days after the Beirut blast, 11 photographers based in the Lebanese capital share an image that captures the spirit of the city

Meet the stained-glass artist restoring 30-years of shattered masterpieces in Beirut

Produced, interviewed, filmed, and edited.

Waiting For Normal

A journalist returns to Beirut fearful that that the revolution she’d had watch from afar had ended.

The embers and hope still burned.

Then came the explosion of August.

October 17th march: the battle continues | مسيرة 17 تشرين: المواجهة مستمرّة

Contributing footage.

Beirut’s LGBTQ Community is Trying to Leave Lebanon

A fatal explosion, a pandemic, and an economic collapse leaves Lebanon's queer community at risk of disappearing.

Thirty Thousand Feet

Nothing seemed to have changed under Kissproof’s red lights. The music, the people, the bartenders, the conversations were all so familiar. When I returned to Beirut, six months after leaving for New York, my friends and I went for drinks at Kissproof. They hadn’t changed a bit, with their same old habits of being an hour late wherever we went, their loud contagious laughter, and their struggles of twenty-something artists trying to make it in Beirut. Nothing had changed, except me. Like a foreigner in a new city, I felt almost removed from what used to be my home. Six months away from Beirut couldn’t change me that much, could they?

Child Marriage, still a Reality in the U.S.

Aliya was 20 when she was pregnant with her daughter and playing with her one-year-old son in her uncle’s basement, in Maryland.  She was trying to persuade her uncle to allow her out of the marriage she was forced into. “The only way you’re going to get out of this marriage is if you die, he told me,” Aliya said.

View from Bay Ridge: Syrian With Asylum Looks Toward Home

On a warm Friday evening in Damascus in early February 2019, the Al Nahlawi family celebrated a daughter’s engagement with a festive dinner with the fiancé’s family. Far away in New York, through a few family selfies and pictures shared on WhatsApp, Ahmad Al Nahlawi, the father of the soon-to-be bride, could almost pretend he was with them.

Pink’s second life

Centuries separate them, but punk bassist Paul Simon, fashion designer Elsa Shiaparelli, and Madame de Pompadour share a love of the color pink. The Fashion Institute of Technology pays tribute to this color with the exhibition “Pink: The History of a Punk, Pretty, Powerful Color” which runs through January 5, 2019.

Drag queens take over the Javits Center

Royal protocol prohibits women from wearing dresses above the knee, loud nail polish, and tiaras, if they’re not married. For drag queens’ protocol, on the other hand, rules are meant to be broken.

Nayla Geagea: The human rights lawyer who doesn’t know how to drive

As she sits in one of her usual bars, some ask her about work, others about her take on the elections, and few even hand her apples from their grocery bags as a hello. As a true Beiruti, Nayla Geagea can’t go five minutes without being saluted by the dwellers of the neighborhood.

A look at memory and war, with the Nazra exhibition

While the war in Syria is still ongoing, and Palestinians are being killed while protesting for their right of return, Lebanon is dealing with its own demons of the civil war. The “Nazra: On memory and war” photo exhibition opened its doors to the public on Wednesday, May 15, with a panel discussion on “Oral History and Memory of the Lebanese Civil War.”

The Beirut Women Film Festival celebrates women in all their roles

Women and the Hollywood movie industry haven’t been on the best terms in the past few months. Lebanon, on the other hand, is launching its first Beirut Women Film Festival (BWFF), as its festival director, Sam Lahoud announced in a press conference held at the Lancaster Plaza Hotel on Friday, February 23, with the support of the Women’s Affairs Minister, Jean Oghassabian.

Activists say ‘Enough!’ to violence against women

Women and men  gathered in front of the National Museum in Beirut on December 23, 2017,  to light candles in solidarity with the women murdered during the preceding week.

Why We Spend Two Hours in Traffic

Twinkling yellow and red lights are seen to illuminate homes and malls, but also fill the streets and highways, as the time spent on the road doubles up. Indeed, it’s that time of the year again: holiday season just came to town.

A Success For Beirut’s Heritage, But Not Yet A Victory

Lebanon approved new laws set to protect heritage on October 12, seen as a small victory for diligent campaigners from Save Beirut Heritage and other groups.