Event

Prologue with Raed Rafei

In March 1974, a group of Lebanese radical leftist students occupied the campus of the American University of Beirut (AUB). They were protesting against cultural and political imperialism and social injustices at a time when Lebanon was sliding into civil violence. Prologue revisits this emblematic incident in the history of the country through the eyes of young political activists. It explores the sequence of events that led to the occupation of AUB in 1974 in light of present-day Arab revolutions. The film meticulously deconstructs the themes pertaining to any revolution: what drives change? What mobilizes the masses? What is the place of revolutionary violence? Prologue blurs the lines between reality and fiction, action and intention, past and present. Prologue is the initial phase of a feature film project on the 1974 occupation of the American University of Beirut.