Beirut DC is a key player in an ecosystem of regional and global civil society organizations nurturing the power of film to achieve social impact and narrative change. Beirut DC was founded in 1999 when a group of Lebanese filmmakers and cinephiles, faced with a lack of funding, support, and emancipation opportunities, sought to create them for themselves.
For 22 years, Beirut DC has built the capacity of Arab film makers, enhanced their productions and connected them to local audiences and international partners. Three years ago, Beirut DC felt the urge to revisit its strategy and approaches to respond to a boom in social justice driven independent storytelling, in a volatile Arab context and a rapidly changing world. Today, Beirut DC is focusing all of its efforts on one overarching goal: Narrative Shift Strategy – putting Arab independent film at the service of social, environmental, political, and cultural movements, affecting change in the region and beyond. Beirut DC believes everyone deserves 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. Beirut DC want to bring back independent film to the people as an accessible experience, a critical tool of free expression and dialogue, and, with it, new opportunities to strengthen civil society and affect social change.
Mimeta’s support to Beirut DC started in 2022 and is part of our partnership with the International Resource for Impact in Storytelling initiative. We support Beirut DC develop a new generation of impact producers in the Arab region. These are film professionals who are attached to a film crew to develop a social impact strategy for a film in the making or in post-production. Beirut DC have been pioneers in organizing the first impact lab and Goodpitch event in the Arab region in ?. A Doc Society founded model, Goodpitch in Arabic is a regional contextualization of a Doc Society designed model for bringing filmmakers with leading change makers around urgent social issues to forge new coalitions that are good for the films and good for society. Our support to Beirut DC also goes towards the development of resources, practical guides that enhance the safety and security of Arab film makers.
