Danielle Arbid

Born in Beirut, Danielle Arbid studied literature at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University, and journalism at the CFPJ. She worked as a freelancer for two years in the French press, before directing her first short film, Raddem (1998), produced by the GREC.

Selected by numerous festivals (Cannes, Locarno, New York, San Francisco, Pusan, Tokyo, etc.), her fiction and documentary films have won dozens of prestigious awards such as the Silver Video Leopard and the Albert-Londres Prize for Alone with War in 2001, the Golden Leopard for Conversations de salon 1 and the Villa Médicis outside the wall for On Borders in 2004.

Her first two feature films, In the Battlefields and A Lost Man, are selected for the Director’s Fortnight in 2004 and 2007, as well as for some thirty festivals around the world, wins numerous awards. In 2011, Danielle Arbid directs a documentary for Arte, Beirut Hotel, presented in competition at Locarno. Parisienne, her third feature film (2016) wins the Académie Lumière Foreign Press Prize in France, among others.

In 2017, she directs a short film, Le Feu au cœur, for the 3e Scène, the Paris Opera’s digital platform. Her fourth feature film, Simple Passion, adapted from Annie Ernaux's novel of the same name, was selected for the Cannes Film Festival in 2020.

In 2022, Danielle Arbid represents her home country, Lebanon, at the Venice Biennale with the video essay Allô Chérie. The Lebanese Pavilion has been nominated by Le Monde, the Financial Times and Quotidien de l'Art as one of the "Top 15 Pavilions to See" for the 59th Venice Biennale.