The Insult – 7PM

“A powerful and impeccably crafted tale arguing for the crucial importance of addressing history and facing down trauma… Doueiri weaves a starkly intimate fable of violence that’s at once deeply personal and universally, globally relevant.”  – Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service

“… eloquently portrays not only the galloping dehumanization that the world is living through, but above all its… deep contempt for the most basic human values ​​that inhabit the world’s geopolitics…” – Toni Vall, CINEMANIA

The latest feature from Ziad Doueiri centres on a dispute between two men on the streets of Beirut that suddenly becomes a national sensation when it opens up old wounds and traumatic memories. One afternoon in the dog days of a Beirut summer, Tony (Adel Karam) gets into an altercation with Yasser over a broken drainpipe. Tony is a mechanic and a Christian; Yasser is a construction foreman and a Palestinian. When Tony, hard-nosed and hot-headed, refuses to accept Yasser’s half-hearted apology, two bruised male egos begin to swell. Tony utters an unforgiveable insult to Yasser. With a speed neither man could foresee, their personal argument escalates through the neighbourhood and the city to the national stage. The dispute comes to encapsulate the lasting legacy of the Lebanese Civil War — and becomes a lightning rod for people with more power than either man to pursue their own agendas. Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards, The Insult is an impeccably made political drama, layered with clever observations on the complex history of the region as seen through the intimate mechanisms of an interpersonal misunderstanding.

7 Awards, 14 Nominations:

Nominated, Best Foreign Language Film of the Year, Academy Awards, USA, 2018
Winner, Audience Award/World Cinema, AFI FEST, 2017
Winner, Best Feature Film, Boulder International Film Festival, 2018
Nominated, Best Lebanese Motion Picture/Best Ensemble Cast in a Lebanese Motion Picture, The Lebanese Movie Awards, 2018
Winner, Best Actor (Kamel El Basha) Venice Film Festival, 2017