Freelance Palestinian journalist Mahmoud Abu Hameda won Saturday the photography category of the prestigious Bayo Award for War Correspondents for his work from Gaza.
In addition to the grand prize, Abu Hamida, who lives in Gaza, won the People’s Choice Award for his video report “What War Leaves Behind.”
The journalist did not attend the ceremony in Bayeux in northwestern France, but he sent a video message to the celebration.
The Washington Post, National Public Radio (NPR), and CNN also won major awards in the print, radio, and television categories for reports they prepared from Ukraine, the Gaza Strip, and the occupied West Bank, respectively.
The Washington Post team was honored for telling the story of a Ukrainian soldier who was trapped in a combat zone for 177 days.
Palestinian journalist Anas Baba, from the National Public Radio Network (NPR), won the radio award for a report on the recovery of the bodies of victims in Gaza.
Journalists from CNN won the Television Awards and the Video Image Award for their reporting on Israeli soldiers helping settlers in the West Bank.
Associated Press photographer Jihad Al-Sharafi won the “Young Reporter” award for photography for his series “Endless War and Destruction in Gaza.”
One of Charfi's photos, which shows football players on a field surrounded by rubble in Gaza, sparked controversy in France in August.
The photo was removed from a sports photography festival in Deauville, northern France, before a court ordered its return.
The Bayo Awards jury was chaired by veteran BBC correspondent Lise Doucet.
The Lebanese poet and painter Bassima Batouli, the mother of the director known as Christo, has passed away. Her son and only son mourned her on his personal social media pages, posting a picture of himself with her.
He wrote on behalf of Christo to his mother, saying that he would miss her very much, and that he would miss her preoccupation with him when he travelled, and her smile before she left and when she looked at him while overcoming her illness and pain. That smile that will remain engraved in his eyes and heart for life.
The poet Basma Batuli has several collections of poetry, including: “Chariots of Echo” 2009, “With Love Until Death” 1978, “Wreathed with Longing” 1996, “When Fire Clothes Its Nakedness” 2012, “Visual Echoes” 2013, “Breaks and Waters of Time” 2016, and “On the Place of Youth and Boyhood” 2017.
She was born in Beirut, to her father, the writer Tawfiq Al-Batouli, and her mother, the painter Linda Kazan Al-Batouli. Basma Batuli obtained an educational degree in Arabic language and literature from the University of Lyon in France, a diploma in journalism from the Egyptian College of Journalism, and a graduate of the Teachers’ House in Lebanon.
She worked as an administrative employee in the Ministry of National Education, and prepared and presented cultural programs on Lebanon Television. She was active in poetry evenings, festivals, and conferences.
She also wrote vertical and verse poetry, painted hundreds of watercolor and oil paintings, and participated with her works in individual and group art exhibitions.
She received many awards and honors, most notably the National Cedar Medal, rank of officer, awarded to her in 2022 by the then President of the Lebanese Republic, General Michel Aoun, in appreciation of her creative career in poetry and painting.
Ten days of art in Tripoli (northern Lebanon) under the title “Geography of Connection.” It is the second session of “Art Theater Week,” which has turned into an annual date, like a window for the people of the city, as it combines theatre, music, dance, visual arts, dialogues, and bold experiments, from the ninth to the eighteenth of this October.
If last year was particularly welcoming to artists from the city, this year it is opening up to regions and nationalities. “Theatre” director Nadine Ali Deeb, who is organizing the demonstration, says: “The regions are often attached to the center, but our festival considers Tripoli worthy of being a space for production, creativity, and crystallization of energies, and this is what we are trying to encourage in our center and through our annual festival.”
Art to confront cruelty
This time, Lebanese and international artists participate, whose works address issues related to land, imagination, and belonging. Nadine explains: “The works belong to contemporary art, which is a need for the city. Artists have the ability to provide testimonies carried by imagination in an attempt to answer the difficulties of the harsh reality that we face.”
In the face of torn geography and war narratives, imagination, memory and identity come as a lifeline. We see this in the art exhibition on “War and Geography,” which was hosted by “Marsa” on the opening day (Friday), and continues until the end of the month. Nine visual works, including four selected works from the “Tell Me, South” exhibition, which was previously hosted by the “Beit Beirut” Center. One of these works is “A Buffer Zone” by Farah Baru, which depicts a return to the ancestral village, while Rabab Shams al-Din in “But Close to the Pomegranate Season” contemplates the continuation of life amidst turmoil. In “After Dinner,” Adeeb Farhat turns the oral narratives of four women from the south into a living archive around a dining table, and Sama Baydoun searches in “What Remains” for the fragile relationship between memory, place, and image.
The exhibition also includes “Passage” by Fatima Jumaa, about the body, martyrdom, and death, and “Orfeo and the Monsters” by Caroline Hatem, which reimagines Orpheus’ journey to the underworld in the Lebanese dialect. Mona Ayoub, resident artist at Marsah Studio, presents “Between the Alleys,” a woven textile mural in natural colors collected from plants in Tripoli’s old neighborhoods.
Exhibition in the ancient Hammam Izz al-Din
A second art exhibition will open to the public at the ancient Hammam Izz al-Din, located in the old market of Tripoli, on the 14th of October. Life is brought back to this beautiful place after abandonment and closure through three works by Ahmed Al-Nabulsi and Rebecca Tawk entitled “In the Beginning There Was Water,” inspired by the pigeons’ diaries. One of the works is a documentary, the second is implemented using virtual reality technology, and the third is based on sound. In her documentary, Rebecca Tawk follows “Abu Ali River” as it descends from the top of the Qadisha Valley all the way to the coastal city of Tripoli, carrying layers of memories. This river also suggests to Ahmed Al-Nabulsi to depict, using virtual reality technology, an imaginary journey that depicts what was erased through “the character of Abu Ali.” The third work, displayed in the bathroom, is inspired by the sounds of water, showering and movement and turns them into another form of memory. The exhibition continues until the eighteenth of the month.
In conjunction with the launch of the festival on the first day, the art exhibition was held in a “theater” and the play “Forty Stones from the Rubles of the Suburb,” by actor and director Hashem Hashem and Petra Sarhal, was presented. On the second day, i.e. the tenth of the month, “Ayishin” was presented, which is a contemporary dance by the “Al-Sarab” band, followed by a singing concert by Cindy Chamoun and her band, where she sang songs by the beloved Sheikh Imam with her experienced voice.
A meeting and workshop will be held on Sunday about art, extended reality, and new methods of production, with British artist Lara Qubaisi, where participation after pre-registration will be mandatory.
On the fifteenth, there will be a forum entitled “Joint Action and the Parties: Reformulating Our Cultural System,” where a practical discussion will take place between workers in the cultural field and artists to develop a more cohesive and equitable structure between the capital and the peripheries. A shadow fantasy show entitled “Abu Ali River Serpent” is presented. It is the first by the artist Rashid Bashnati, who resides in the “Marsha” studio.
“Jogging” finally in Tripoli
On Friday, the 16th of this month, there will be a concert by Egyptian musician and composer Hazem Shaheen. Followed on Saturday by a theatrical performance entitled “Jogging” by Hanan Haj Ali, which toured festivals and won awards, and has been showing for several years. The festival will conclude on Sunday, the eighteenth of the month, with a group of short films under the title “The Earth is a Woman” in cooperation with the Reef Foundation, then an audio-visual presentation and dialogue with Firas Hallaq “The Dome Sessions,” during which he talks about a unique musical recording he made under the dome of the Rashid Karami Gallery Theater, followed by a concert by Makram Abu Al-Hassan and Ghassan Sahab.
“Marsah” is an independent art center and platform for multidisciplinary art, based in Al-Mina in Tripoli. It was established in 2023. Nadine, who runs “Marsah” and organizes the annual festival, says: “The center accumulates critical practices and contemporary works, from various artistic schools, and organizes residencies for artists who produce their own works, some of which participate in the festival. The latter is a space for us to go back and imagine collectively, and we leave the artists a space of hope to say in their language what we need to hear.” That is why “Marsah” works with local artists in particular, and it remains one of the few open spaces in the city of Tripoli, if not the only one available to creative people, not only to express themselves, but to develop their talents and educate them with other new experiences.
