Palestinian filmmaker Mai Masri had a sense of deja vu last year while filming a documentary on life in Beirut under Israeli bombardment.

Apr. 04, 2007- “History repeats itself, that’s for sure,” said Masri, whose early work includes Under the Rubble - a documentary on Beirut during Israel’s 1982 invasion.

Due out in a few months, 33 Days in Beirut presents what Masri describes as “civil resistance” in Lebanon during the July-August war between Israel and guerrilla group Hezbollah.

The film follows volunteers who helped some of the hundreds of thousands uprooted by a conflict which killed 1,200 people in Lebanon, most of them civilians. Forty-one Israeli civilians and 117 Israeli soldiers were also killed.
An array of groups emerged to help Lebanon’s displaced. Masri follows volunteers including a playwright who worked with children driven from south Lebanon to shelters in Beirut.

“Resistance has different levels,” she said. “I try to portray that through the role of people working in different fields ... The volunteer work.”

One of the Arab world’s most prominent documentary makers, Masri has won dozens of international awards. Much of her work has documented the lives of Palestinian refugees and Lebanese during war.

“War is what I’ve known all my life. Being Palestinian, you can’t run away from that,” she said.

Many of Masri’s films have been broadcast by major television channels in Europe and the US. But she talks of growing difficulty in getting them aired.

“There’s more control,” she said. “Obstacles in terms of getting our films to large audiences. Even Jimmy Carter is facing obstacles.” The former US president has faced sharp criticism by Jewish groups in the US over his book Palestine: Peace not Apartheid.

Masri said: “That’s the kind of obstacle I’m talking about - the obstacle of reaching mainstream audiences when you portray Arabs or Palestinians in a positive way. There are many powerful machines that don’t want that image to come across.”

“But it’s possible to break through.”

Masri’s latest release, Beirut Diaries: Truth, Lies and Videos, has generated heated debate among audiences in Lebanon during an unusually long five-week cinema screening.

Reuters