Amid Israel’s fragile ceasefire with Hezbollah, after months of raids, air strikes and artillery attacks, Beirut residents can look forward to the return of the Metropolis Cinema this weekend.
The opening of Lebanon's first dedicated venue for independent and art house films had been forced into an indefinite holding pattern, first by months of cross-border fire between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, and then by Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon in September.
Finally, the purpose-built complex in Beirut’s Mar Mikhael district – thankfully still in one piece – is set to welcome visitors back on Saturday.
“In a city like Beirut, culture is a very important part of our identity,” said Metropolis founder and director Hania Mroue. “People have lost their money and their homes, but we still have our pride, our culture, and our ability to produce and appreciate art, and I want to support that as much as possible. As soon as we announced that Metropolis was coming back, the reaction was overwhelming and extremely encouraging.”
Launched in 2006, the Metropolis Cinema Association was a cornerstone of Lebanon’s independent film scene for many years. The organisation expanded from a small, single-screen art house cinema – the first in the country – to an internationally recognised institution, working with filmmakers and festivals around the world, and becoming a vital incubator for the local film industry through education and training programmes.
Metropolis is sadly no stranger to overcoming adversity. Within a day of its 2006 inauguration, the cinema was repurposed as a shelter for Lebanese families displaced by the outbreak of the war with Israel. During this time, the organisation screened films to entertain the children, inspiring the youth cinema programmes that followed.
In more recent times, Metropolis – and Lebanon in general – has faced more difficulties, with the economic crisis that began in 2019, the Covid-19 pandemic and the devastating Beirut Port explosion in 2020. Metropolis was forced to vacate their venue, the Empire-Sofil cinema in Achrafieh, the same year.
“The [economic] crisis was different, because it paralysed the entire country,” said Mroue. “The shock made us think twice about what we were doing, and how we wanted to continue. We realised that the only way forward for us was to work on rebuilding. You have to deal with these kinds of challenges by developing the ability to adapt quickly and find creative solutions.”
Conceived by architect Sophie Khayat, Metropolis’s new venue has two screening rooms – one with 200 seats, and the other with 100 seats – in addition to a large garden incorporating an open-air cinema and a cultural cafe suitable for hosting festivals and other events. The entire structure has also been designed to be portable, allowing Metropolis Cinema to be moved in its entirety if necessary.
“The land has been given to us for a certain period of time,” explained Mroue. “If we have to leave at the end of this term, we have the possibility to take our cinema with us and go somewhere else.”
The complex also contains an library where visitors can view collected films and access thousands of publications on Lebanese and Arabian cinema, as well as a media floor dedicated to Metropolis’s own archives, which are open to the public.
“The whole idea of starting the cinematheque was to give people access to these films that they hear about, particularly from the 1960s and 1970s – the 'golden era' of Lebanese cinema,” said Mroue. “So much that is related to [our collective] memory – especially in Lebanon – has been destroyed, either deliberately or through negligence. We don't want to embellish this, or make it sacred. We need to have a critical eye for these films, and be able to understand the social, political and economic context in which they were made.”
