Biographie
Rima Samman is an artist and filmmaker. She has written and directed several films, and collaborated with directors such as Bruno Dumont and Ziad Doueiri. Her short fiction films have been pre-purchased by Arte and France 3, and have won awards at festivals. She has just completed her feature film Dans le cœur une hirondelle, which has also been selected and won awards at festivals.
In 2020, she published a book of photographs entitled ‘L'AMOUR SE PORTE AUTOUR DU COU’, with text by Sylvain Prudhomme. Published by Filigranes Editions, this book presents another facet of her artistic work. The photographic works featured in the book have been exhibited at Paris Photo, UNSEEN, MENART and at photography festivals and fairs abroad.
Rima Samman is also artistic director and editor of Photographes de notre temps, a collection of portraits of contemporary photographers and artists conceived by Patrick Le Bescont, Filigranes Films (since 2009), including :
- Echos, versos et graphies de batailles (on Catherine Poncin), 2014, 30′
- Le cabanon de Mister G. (on Gilbert Garcin), 2013, 12′, Festivals: Regard de St Germain-en-Laye, Galerie L'imagerie (Lannion), Rendez-vous photographiques (Agen), Cinéma Eden-Théâtre (La Ciotat), Galerie Le Lieu (Lorient), etc.
- La fabrique du champ obscur (on Corinne Mercadier), 2012, 45′
- Chevaleresque (on Rip Hopkins), 2012, 44′
- Effeuillage (on Bernard Plossu and Françoise Nunez), 2011, 65′
- Terre foulée (on Jacques Borgetto), 2011, 14′
- Une campagne photographique (on Thibaut Cuisset), 2010, 8′, screenings Jeu de Paume hors les murs (Tours), etc.
Présentation
Intervention on press photographs depicting past and present news of Lebanon.
On 4 August 2020, the double explosion that occurred in the port of Beirut shook Lebanon and the Lebanese diaspora by reviving everyone’s anxiety and pain of being Lebanese.
What to do? How to deal with such a tragedy?
Happiness kills was born of the need to transform press photographs depicting Lebanon at different times in its history, to make dialogue between the past and the present.
My parents are almost the same age as Lebanon, a country regularly shaken, traumatized and bruised. Many Lebanese have tragically lost at least one family member in the successive wars in Lebanon. For years, I have been hand-painting my family photos to keep the happy memory of a lost paradise.
My approach consists of mixing images from Épinal du Liban with photos from the news, showing a trauma breaking into a real idyllic. I have spent my life fleeing the ghostly images that haunt me, and which I am now seeking to re-appropriate.