Hauntologies by Elia Ayoub
The Fire These Times
71/ Bearing Witness to What is Lost: Lebanon’s ‘Postwar’ Hauntings (with Ely Dagher)
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71/ Bearing Witness to What is Lost: Lebanon’s ‘Postwar’ Hauntings (with Ely Dagher)

This is a conversation with Lebanese director Ely Dagher. He is the director of the Palme D’Or-winning Waves ’98, one of my favorite short films. He also has an upcoming feature  film called The Sea Ahead.

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Blog: https://thefirethisti.me

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Topics discussed:

  • Waves ’98

  • The image of the city

  • The 2015 ‘You Stink’ Lebanon uprising: context/background

  • The  feeling of history repeating itself: Waves ’98 features the 1998 waste  crisis which led to the 2015 waste crisis (which led to the uprising)

  • Inter-generational anxiety: ‘I don’t want to end up like them’

  • On resilience and why it’s a failed notion

  • The ‘ghostly figure’ in literature and movies, including in Lebanon

  • Haunting from the future, the feel of being stuck (permanent liminality)

  • The post-August 2020 port of Beirut moment

  • Interesting comparisons between Lebanon and Hong Kong, and their relationship with the past and future

  • How do we live day to day while also being in a state of anxiety? (his upcoming film)

  • How Beirut is portrayed in Waves ’98 and how Beirut has changed since the 90s

  • The relationship to the city and the sea in Beirut

  • Beirut as a ghost town

  • Hauntings in Waves ’98 and in real life; cyclical hauntings

  • Our peculiar relationship with Television

  • Our complicated relationship with the sea growing up in post-1990s Lebanon

  • The politics of decay (my essay on the topic)

  • war/post-war vs war/not-war

  • The anticipation of violence

  • ‘wartime’

  • Is there a way out of that cyclical haunting?

Recommended Books & Movies

The music is by Tarabeat.

Discussion about this podcast