Eliane Raheb

Eliane Raheb (Arabic: إليان الراهب; born 1972) is a documentary filmmaker from Lebanon.

Eliane Raheb was born in 1972 in Lebanon, where she studied at IESAV in Beirut to become a filmmaker. She has since worked as an editor and assistant director, producing short film and documentaries. Raheb's directorial debut came the release of her short film The Last Screening, which revolves around the relationship between a girl and her grandfather's theater. With her 2012 film Layali Bala Noom (Sleepless Nights), Raheb made her debut as a feature-length film director.

Raheb has displayed an interest in the Lebanese experience across her filmography. Commenting on her own work, Raheb has stated that: "‘In the absence of a film industry structure in Lebanon, short films have performed the invaluable task of chronicling life in Lebanon after the war. They provide the material for a potential cinema."

For example, she details in her 2002 documentary So Near Yet So far how the Intifada squashed the hopes of visiting neighbouring countries for children living Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan.

Suicide (2003) documents the Lebanese response to the American invasion of Iraq, depicting both the intelligentsia who felt it pointless, and those in Lebanon who fell for Iraqi propaganda and joined the fight.

With her 2008 documentary This Is Lebanon, Raheb captures the reemergence of violence in Lebanon. The film follows the resistance against the establishment and the patriarchal family structure, which Raheb purports are partly to blame for the political and religious sectarianism in her country. This Is Lebanon was broadcast internationally on television by ARTE, ZDF, and Al Jadeed.

In her documentary Sleepless Nights, which screened in more than 40 film festivals, Raheb explores the blanket amnesty granted to all those who committed political crimes during the Lebanese civil war and how it affected both the victims and the perpetrators of these crimes. To that end, Sleepless nights chronicles the lives of Assaad Shaftari, an ex-intelligence officer who was directly responsible for many casualties during his tenure as a high-ranking member of the Christian right wing militia during the Lebanese Civil War, and Maryam Saiidi, who's son Maher, a young communist fighter, went missing in 1982.

Alongside her career as a filmmaker, Raheb also supports the Lebanese film community by teaching filmmaking at the St. Joseph University in Beirut and being active in cultural organizations in Lebanon and the Beirut Film Festival.

One of Eliane Raheb's arguably biggest contributions to Arab cinema is Beirut DC. Founded by Raheb in 1999, Beirut DC is a cultural association whose objectives include providing training and networking opportunities to independent filmmakers while simultaneously documenting and promoting their work in Lebanon through co-production and screenings. The Beirut Film Festival, Ayam Bayrut al-sinim'iya, counts alongside a touring Arab Film Week among her association's most effective cultural initiatives. The association is currently run by Raheb and Hania Murawwah.

Together with producer Nizar Hassan, who produced Raheb's Sleepless Nights, she founded Free Arabs (2011-2012), a documentary film project that was both transnational and multimedia. Raheb has produced 160 short films as part of this project, all of which were by young filmmakers emanating from seven countries that took part in the Arab Spring. All 160 short documentaries, which detail the day-to-day lives of Arabs during the revolutions, were aired online.

Her Lebanese-based production company Itar Productions, which she also founded with Nizar Hassan, is active throughout the Arab world.

Upon its release, Sleepless nights received a warm reception from critics. Jay Weissberg, writing for Variety, wrote: “It’s hard to find a Lebanese film that doesn’t focus on the bloody civil war. And yet it is even harder to find a film that treats this topic better than Sleepless Nights.” Sight and Sound included the film in its list of the 25 best international films of 2013. It also won a number of competitions, including the human rights prize at the Cine Invisible in Bilbao, a competition for documentary film at the Birds Eye View Festival in London, and the full-length film competition at the LAIFF Festival in Argentina.

Her documentary This Is Lebanon received the Excellency Award at the Yamagata film festival in Japan.

At the Mumbai Film Festival, Raheb's film Suicide garnered second place.

Viola Shafik, author of Arab Cinema: History and Cultural Identity, has referred to Raheb's association Beirut DC as a "backbone of Lebanese alternative film art".