The 2022 support to Beirut DC/ Aflamuna, this well-established but continuously growing organization, In Lebanon was done by combining the funds provided from MFA and IRIS. Beirut DC/ Aflamuna has, for over two decades, continually strived to meet the current needs of independent filmmakers and audiences from across the 22 countries making up the Arab region. The director of Beirut DC/ Aflamuna, Jad Abi-Khalil states:
“We firmly believe everyone deserves to have access to independent cinema, to have their preconceived beliefs challenged and their horizons expanded, and to contribute their narrative to the local, regional, and global conversations. We perceive access to culture as a human right, and we steer all of our programs in that direction.”
To ensure access, Beirut DC have undertaken the development of a new and innovative model for film circulation and audience building.
Impact Production and Impact Distribution are the practices of creating unconventional partnerships between independent filmmakers and actors from across civil society to the great benefit of both sides - putting the power of film at the service of social, political, and environmental causes championed by civil society, and giving independent filmmakers access to new resources including funding, expertise, and pathways to new audiences. They enable independent films to reach audiences they don’t usually have access to - especially the audiences that matter for the film i.e., the communities affected by the issues raised, and the citizens and policymakers that can affect those issues.
Impact Campaigns is a form of ensuring partnerships between a film and civil society. Taking the film and its subject as the starting point, they can include a myriad of activities from non-commercial screenings for target communities (“the audiences that matter”), to decision-maker screenings, from the creation of companion board games for the films, to ambitious mixed-media campaigns. The Impact Fund Beirut DC has initiated, provides seed funding for Impact Campaigns, all of which include activities that aim to expand the audience of the film. And the BluGuide, also developed by Beirut DC, connects filmmakers to civil society organisations willing to participate in campaigns and help them reach new audiences. It currently includes almost 200 organizations from Lebanon, Palestine, and Jordan. In 2022 Beirut DC supported 43 projects and funded 10 films and impact campaigns from Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Sudan, and Morocco. Through the unparalleled power of cinema, Beirut DC elevated major contemporary issues as diverse as the climate emergency and forefront rural communities, gender, identity, and sexuality, the plight of workers, mental health and rehabilitation in prison, and cultural transformations in conflict.
Impact Producers are the professionals (previously filmmakers, activists, journalists, etc.) that take on this work of bridging the gap between civil society and independent film. They design the campaigns, find partners, gather funding, and oversee the implementation of the activities and the evaluation of their impact. Through Beirut DC run Impact Labs and Fellowship program, Beirut DC train Impact Producers to undertake the work of Impact Production and Impact Distribution. Over 100 individuals have been introduced and trained in 2022, and 9 fellows are currently undergoing an exhaustive program that aims to make them professionally dedicated Impact Producers. In 2022, the number of applications for the newly introduced Fellowship scheme exceeded Beirut DC expectations (104 from 15 countries). Beirut DC trained and connected 121 individuals, reached over 7000 physical audience members across Lebanon, and almost 14.000 subscribers through their online screening service, Aflamuna.
