Iranian filmmaker Babak Payami was this year’s president of the jury at the Beirut International Film Festival. iloubnan.info met with the award winning director, writer and producer who shared his thought concerning film production in the Middle East and the difficulties of making movies in the region.

iloubnan.info : How did you find the festival’s selection this year?
Babak Payami : The selection was small but obviously production in this region is also small. It was quite representative of the range of films that are made in the Middle-East. Obviously the films could have been much better as there are a lot of pressure and technical limitations but I’m very proud of the prizes and the films that made it through.

In your speech at the closing ceremony of the festival, you rejected the appellation”Arab Film Competition” why is that?
“Arab Film Competition” may not be a suitable title as the films show how diverse and different we all are. Actually, Arab speaking members of the jury couldn’t even understand the Arab dialect in some of the films. I think that’s a very positive thing. Indeed, what characterizes us as Middle-Easterners is that we are all very different and we know how to coexist and correlate with each other. In that essence, the selection was a success.

The film industry in the Middle East also has to deal with political limitations, how can filmmakers cope with such situations?
Yes, unfortunately there’s an added dimension to filmmaking in this region and that is the political pressure. Here, filmmakers not only have technical problems and financing problems, to varying degrees in varying countries, they also have to deal with censorship, public perception and a lot of other limitations. It’s frustrating and challenging at the same times. Here in Lebanon there have been some breakthrough movies that have been quite controversial. There’s still a lot to be done. The most importing thing is to push the limit. At best, filmmakers are responsible for their own work and responsible for how they see the world; at the same time they have to maintain their integrity.