Join us for a viewing of the powerful film ‘1982,’ winner of major awards at the Cannes and Toronto Film Festival. Writer/director Oualid Mouaness will join moderator Paul Amar for a post-screening discussion of 1982.
Tuesday, May 10, 2022 / 7:00 PM (PDT)
Pollock Theater, UCSB
“1982” is a life-affirming coming-of-age tale set at an idyllic school in Lebanon’s mountains on the eve of a looming invasion. It unfolds over a single day and follows an 11-year-old boy’s relentless quest to profess his love to a girl in his class. As the invasion encroaches on Beirut, it upends the day, threatening the entire country and its cohesion. Within the microcosm of the school, the film draws a harrowing portrait of a society torn between its desire for love and peace and the ideological schisms unraveling its seams. In his debut feature Oualid Mouaness delivers an ode to innocence in which he revisits one of the most cataclysmic moments in Lebanon’s history through the lens of a child and his vibrant imagination. It demonstrates the complexities of love and war, and the resilience of the human spirit. The film stars Mohamad Dalli (in his acting debut) and Lebanese superstar Nadine Labaki (Capernaum, Where Do We Go Now, Caramel) alongside an extraordinary ensemble cast of professional and non-professional actors. “1982” won the Cannes Film Festival’s youth sidebar’s PRIX CANNES ECRANS JUNIORS 2021 (Cannes Cinéphiles), the Toronto International Film Festival’s NETPAC AWARD, a FIPRESCI International Critics Prize at El-Gouna, and the UNICEF 2021 Prize among numerous others. The film was Lebanon’s official submission to the 92nd Academy Awards and holds the Murex D’Or, Lebanon’s Best Feature Film honor of the last two years. “1982” is the first film from Lebanon to address the polemic 1982 war.
This event is sponsored by the Carsey-Wolf Center, the Orfalea Center for Global & International Studies, and the Area Global Initiative at UCSB.
Oualid Mouaness is an award-winning Lebanese American director, writer, and producer. His debut feature film 1982 received the prestigious Prix Cannes Écrans Juniors, the Murex d’Or for best Lebanese Feature film in 2021, the Khayrallah Prize from the Center of Lebanese Diaspora, and many others. His short film The Rifle, The Jackal, The Wolf and the Boy was shortlisted for the Oscars in 2017.
Paul Amar is Department Chair and Professor in the Global Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is a political scientist and anthropologist with affiliate appointments in Feminist Studies, Sociology, Comparative Literature, Middle East Studies, and Latin American & Iberian Studies.
