Golden Fireflies Ceremony – 2023

In our country and our region which are going through times of destruction, bankruptcy and corruption, living art is not an escape forward or backward; no, living art is an urgent practice of our duty of resistance, our responsibility towards the youth and the future. It is also a way to reveal our humanity, its strength but also its frailness. Gilles Deleuze asserted: Art is what resists: it resists death, servitude, infamy, shame.
And we, at BAFF, are 100% art, 100% resistance, 100% continuity.

In a famous article published in the Corriere della Sera in 1975, entitled The Disappearance of the Fireflies, Pier Paolo Pasolini, whose 100th anniversary we have just celebrated, condemns the relationship between the powerful, overpowering and overwhelming lights of power and the surviving lights of humanity, the fireflies. If the poet-director ended up giving up on this resistance, we, in Lebanon, who have been drowning in the darkness of hell since 1975, continue to hope, observe and believe in our fireflies, our Lebanese women who continue to fight for a bright future.
And it is in the darkness of our daily life that the sparkle of our fireflies becomes invaluable.

At a time when the Lebanese people are losing hope and setting sail, we have decided to remain and continue.
In this print-trophy created for the festival by Alia Mouzannar, this continuity is represented by a robust tree deeply rooted in the land. And all around this tree, fireflies swirl, wonderfully embodied by Eliane Raheb.

In recognition of your cinematographic work committed to the memory of war and promoting a fairer society, the BAFF organizers are glad to attribute the third edition of the Golden Fireflies to you Eliane Raheb, and to thank you for your commitment through camera.