Anthology Film Archives32 2nd Ave, New YorkThursday, March 28, 20247 pm

The sixth installment of our ongoing film series at Anthology Film Archives where we will be screening two documentaries from Omar Amiralay: A Plate of Sardines (1998), in which Amiralay and Mohammad Malas visit the ruins of the Golan village of Quneitra, destroyed by the Israeli army in 1974, its only remaining building a former cinema; and The Man With the Golden Soles (2000), where Amiralay wrestles with both self and subject in his precarious portrait of billionaire Lebanese statesman Rafic Hariri, five years before his assassination.

The films will be introduced by writer, editor, and film programmer Hicham Awad.

Omar AmiralayThe Man With the Golden Soles2000, 54 min, digitalArabic and English with English SubtitlesAmiralay’s portrait of billionaire Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri was by his own admission a failure: “What I feared would happen had indeed happened…Hariri was now in complete control.” His leftist peers had tried to warn him (“You know very well that power is pernicious”) but Amiralay nevertheless enters into a dialectical struggle with Hariri in a series of one-on-one interviews. Unable to circumvent his subject’s charisma, Amiralay’s adverserial intentions slowly give way to familiarity as Hariri—often referring to himself in the third person—increasingly appears to be directing from in front of the camera. Featuring Elias Khoury, Fawwaz Traboulsi, and Samir Kassir.