Before presenting the award for Best Screenplay at the closing ceremony of the Cannes Film Festival, Lebanese director Nadine Labaki, winner of the Jury Prize in 2018 for her film Capernaum, said she could not stop thinking about Lebanon, describing it as a country condemned to live through the worst scenarios since her birth.

Labaki, who presented the award to French filmmaker Emmanuel Marre for his film “A Man of His Time,” asked: Is it wise to leave our children and leave Lebanon while our country is going through a devastating war? And do we have the right to celebrate life while death surrounds us?

She added that since she and her husband, composer Khaled Mouzanar, a member of the “Un Certain Regard” jury, received the invitation to the festival, she had been living through “a whirlwind of contradictions, emotions, and uncertainty.” She then emphasized: “But I remember that this small country, which barely appears on the map, stubbornly continues, despite wounds and injustice, to scream, sing, write, make films, and love life, as if art has become our final act of resistance.”

She continued: “So let us celebrate this evening this strength: the strength of art, the strength of words, and the strength of cinema. And let us also celebrate this beautiful hall, you all, this creative energy, and this power that can become one of the most beautiful barriers against the madness of evil.”