12 Angry Lebanese

The Rotaract Club of Tripoli (in collaboration with Catharis, Lebanese Center for Drama Therapy) had recently organized a documentary screening of Zeina Daccache’s “12 Angry Lebanese”, the first play staged by inmates (from Roumieh Prison) in the Middle East.

So last night, Dial, Dina, and I went to watch it. The documentary was brilliant, touching and soul opening. Indeed, Zeina Daccahe is such an inspiration. I first heard of her from a Lebanese Comedy show called Basmat Watan. She used to play a character named ISO, with the famous tagline: “My name is ISO… and I give you BISO (kiss)”

I remember during the infamous summer of 2006, during the Hezbollah-Israel war, as we were being evacuated with the Canadian Embassy, she was there. We spent a good 10 minutes with her, signing applications and asking questions about the evacuation procedures and all that time, none of us realized who she was until after my little brother said, “You do realize that you were talking to ISO, right”. We all looked back at her and it hit us, yes, it was Iso, or Zeina Daccache. I instantly went back to ask for a picture with her, in real life she is a darling:

She’s also got another movie coming out soon, “Ya Noosak”, which I’m also looking forward to watching. Her work so far has been extremely worthy of recognition and at the end of the screening, the entire audience burst with applauds…

The documentary is still screening tonight (Saturday October 16th) and tomorrow (Sunday October 17th) at 7:30PM at Circuit Planete in City Complex Tripoli. Go, Go see it!