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= Nadine Labaki =

Nadine Labaki (Arabic: نادين لبكي‎ Nādīn Labikī; born February 18, 1974) is a Lebanese actress, director and activist. Labaki first came into the spotlight as an actress in the early 2000s. Her film-making career began in 2007 after the release of her debut film, Caramel, which premiered at the Cannes 2007 Film Festival. She is known for demonstrating everyday aspects of Lebanese life and covering a range of political issues such as war, poverty, and feminism. She is the first female Arab director to ever be nominated for an Oscar in the category for Best Foreign Language Film.

Early life
Labaki was born in Baabdat, Mount Lebanon Governorate, Lebanon, in a Maronite family to Antoine and Antoinette Labaki. Her father is an engineer while her mother is a homemaker. She spent the first seventeen years of her life living in a war-torn environment, until 1991 when the civil war in Lebanon had ended. Early in life she learned the art of story telling from her uncle, who was the family hakawati (story teller). Her grandfather also owned a small theatre in Lebanon where she found her love for film. She began her career with Studio El Fan, a Lebanese talent show, in 1990. The show aired during the 1970s, which continued through to the early 2000s. At the talent show, Labaki won a prize for directing various music video productions.

Labaki obtained a degree in audiovisual studies at Saint Joseph University in Beirut. In 1997, she directed her graduation film, 11 Rue Pasteur, which won the Best Short Film Award at the Biennale of Arab Cinema at the Arab World Institute in Paris. Labaki is unique among her fellow Lebanese and Arab Film Makers in that she was not educated or trained abroad.

In 1998, she attended a workshop in acting at the Cours Florent in Paris. She went on to direct advertisements and music videos for renowned Middle Eastern singers, for which she won several awards.

As an actress
Nadine Labaki started acting in short films during the early 2000s.

As an actor, Labaki starred in Stray Bullet, directed by Georges Hachem in 2010. She appears in the Moroccan production Rock The Casbah, directed by Laila Marrakchi, alongside actors Hiam Abbas and Lubna Azabal.[citation needed]

She has also performed in her films, Caramel, Where Do We Go Now? and Capernaum.

Themes
Growing up during the Lebanese Civil War, Labaki’s films are informed by her experiences of political unrest in her home country, often exploring themes of violence and trauma.

Labaki’s films challenge apathy towards important issues, such as the refugee crisis and poverty. Though themes of war and tragedy are prevalent in Labaki’s works, so is humour. Her films cover the Lebanese Civil War and the lasting impacts it had on the country. Her experiences impacted Labaki personally as well as how it shaped her filmmaking. Labaki has stated that she feels that as a director she has to do something good for her country. She then decided that talking about problems such as poverty and the refugee crisis is important. She believes that “Cinema can be a way to [create] change.” She does not want just make films for art and believes that politics and art are intertwined and that her films were her own “way of revolt”. According to Labaki, "sometimes, a line in a film, or a scene can make you think about yourself, about your decisions. By touching your hearts films can offer hope more than politics". Labaki's film has no solution for the issues Lebanon faces, but she hopes that her films will "simply shake audiences out of their chronic lethargy". She has stated that for her, filmmaking and activism are one and the same thing. I really do believe cinema can effect social change.

Another common theme in her work is feminism and the female narrative. She does this by focusing on the everyday lives of women in the middle East in her films.

Through her films, Nadine Labaki connects themes from the Arab world and the Western world. Her transnational feminism highlights ordinary women affected by complex realities deeply rooted in decades of political turmoil. she has reintroduced herself as a forceful political artist who has evolved along with her country.

Style
Labaki’s films are often cast with non-professional actors. She often finds men, women, and children who live in the real neighborhoods shown on screen where they re-enact scenes from their own experiences, often in some of Beirut's grittiest slums. Labaki does this to make the film as realistic as possible. Labaki is also known for spending long periods of time to research and pick the cast for her films. She immerses herself in the lives of her subjects and spent four years researching her subject and the mistreated children in Beirut. For her film Capernaum, she gave her actors minimal direction and used hand-held cameras to capture life in the streets of Lebanon. For her film Caramel, she spent almost a year searching for women who resembled her characters. She purposely did not want professional actors, she explained, and the spontaneity of each authenticates the plot of women supporting each other as they cope with their problems. The filmmaker amassed months of raw footage, which she later edited down to just over two hours.

Labaki states that she was inspired by the photo of a 3-year-old Syrian refugee whose lifeless body sparked outrage around the world. Stating, "I remember thinking if this child could talk, what would he say, and how would he address the adults that killed him?" she says. "I wanted to become their voice, their vehicle for them to express themselves."

Politics
Through her films, Nadine Labaki connects themes from the Arab world and the Western world. Her transnational feminism highlights ordinary women affected by complex realities deeply rooted in decades of political turmoil. Nadine Labaki was a candidate on the list of the new political movement Beirut Madinati for the capital’s May 2016 local election. Beirut Madinati focuses on social justice and the good of the public utilizing a diverse group of citizens as representatives.

Despite achieving about 40% of the popular vote, the movement lost against its opponent, the 'Beirutis' list' supported by Saad Hariri, in all 6 out of 12 wards, but did not gain a single seat under the election’s one-district First-past-the-post system.

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