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In a previous article, I reviewed a documentary on the former Libyan dissident, Ashour Shamis. The director of the film discussed here is his son, Khalid Shamis, who graciously shared his film with the Libya Film Institute blog. After watching it, I asked Khalid to share his previous film, The Imam and I (2011), so that I could include a private link and showcase his directorial filmography.
From this rare generosity, I gathered threads to begin a conversation about his artistic and personal biography, two paths that blend together as a documentation of his own condition and that of his family. We spoke for an hour and a half about Libyan cinema abroad and the process of cinematic documentation between the personal and the public. Khalid does not speak Arabic, and we touched upon that in the dialogue. Here, I have translated and condensed some of what was said.
Our chat ended, yet many questions remained unasked. I did not wish to exploit Khalid’s generosity, as he had given his time without a set end-point, so I preferred to leave the remaining questions for the reader to ask themselves. This is some of the dialogue—the details are many and complex—and the rest remains in the audio recording for those interested.
I believe that the most suitable biographies are autobiographies. Could you summarize your upbringing for the reader?
I was born in London in 1975. My father is Libyan, from Gharyan, and my mother is from Cape Town, South Africa. She belongs to the Cape Malay community in Cape Town, which was racially classified as the Muslim community there. Most of them were descendants of slaves, indentured laborers, and prisoners brought by colonialists from Indonesia. My Libyan father and South African mother met in London, and I was born there with my siblings.
I visited Libya for the first time very late, in 2012. I did not consider myself a Libyan filmmaker until I filmed my father. My cinematic career began when I left London and started working on the continent; starting from South Africa, I consider myself an African filmmaker more than a Libyan or South African one.
We might say, then, that you are not a “Libyan filmmaker” in the traditional sense, because you did not grow up in Libya, where the role of cinema—and cinema itself—was absent. Let’s talk a little about cinematic influences; how did you move from being a viewer to a maker?
I grew up in London in the eighties, where popular culture was dominated by American and English cinema. We had no other options, not even documentaries, with the exception of some David Attenborough programs and Panorama. I favored discovering other worlds, so I studied film theory at university and learned what a narrative is. However, the content of the studies revolved around classical Western narratives and schools and did not touch upon the “how-to” of the film industry.
In the period between graduating in 1997 and emigrating to Cape Town, I worked in television in Soho, London, in production and editing. It was there that I studied the inner workings of production and acquired the necessary confidence for filming and montage. It was there that I became a documentary filmmaker concerning my grandfather (The Imam and I). Everything I have in my pocket—intention, idea, and relationships—enabled the filming. Since then, I became a filmmaker. I started by collecting information and archives to discover the life of my grandfather first, then the life of my father second.
In The Imam and I, there wasn’t a pre-determined direction in your opinion, or you didn’t want to clarify it beforehand; the filming itself determined the path of the film, especially since your grandfather wasn’t honored by the state until recently, in 2014.
Imam Haron was a dominant icon in the Muslim imagination in South Africa. People referred to him as “The Imam.” The Muslim community at the time felt safe relative to the Apartheid system, and thus no opposition arose from the notables of the community. However, Apartheid was one of the worst entities of the twentieth century, and the Muslim community did not align with the teachings of Islam which aim to uphold the word of truth and revolution in the face of the usurper. Even if the Imam went against the current, he did not find a welcome among his fellow Imams. He sacrificed his life back then, and the notables added that what they were warning about had come to pass.
At some stage in your life, you realized that your father had been an opponent of Gaddafi since the eighties, and that your mother’s father was killed in prison during Apartheid. How did this realization impact your consciousness as a filmmaker later on?
I learned about my father in the mid-eighties, when I was ten. After the events at the Libyan Embassy in London, we lived in hiding under police protection, and from there I became certain of my father’s opposition to the Gaddafi regime. With my simple understanding, I knew that Gaddafi was the reason my father could not return to Libya. Yet, he did not remain the sole reference for Libya; I learned about my grandmother through her tattoos, Bazin, Couscous, and how to say Ga’amiz (sit down) and similar words, but a Libyan identity was not fully formed for me.
As for my grandfather, we used to travel to Cape Town constantly since the seventies to visit my grandmother and the rest of the family. Aside from the book mentioned in the film, photos of my grandfather filled our house, so his presence overwhelmed my consciousness early on. When I visit Cape Town, everyone knows me as the Imam’s grandson.
After completing the documentary about my grandfather, I thought about undertaking the experience of investigating my father’s past… the theme of the struggling spy who lived a double life. But I did not think about filming until after the revolution because the opportunity then became available.
Most Libyans know what the phrase “Stray Dogs” means. In your film The Colonel’s Stray Dogs, do you think your interview with your mother was the most appropriate way to reveal your father’s past?
Perhaps. I would like to talk a little about my mother, Shamela Haron, and her role in the two documentaries.
The documentary was the medium for sitting with my father in my capacity as his son, you know the character of the Libyan man. I believe I subconsciously filmed this to connect with my father.
I also believe that without my mother, I would not have filmed the film to communicate with my father.
My mother plays a pivotal role in the film, as I filmed her in the kitchen, which represents her private space, and she appeared in the middle of the film. I did not plan for that, but I discovered it in editing. All the specific symbols appearing in the film point to her and the kitchen. She is also the “guardian of secrets” just as she was the daughter of her father, a guardian of secrets. She contained the secrets of her father for long years, so she became the entrance to my film about my grandfather and the entrance to my second film about my father.
Let us talk a little about filmmaking in Libya. Fortunately, you did not grow up as a filmmaker in Libya. For the filmmaker in Libya, the scene appears as chaos, and the challenges repeat themselves in the Jamahiriya era. I do not favor this question, but do you have free tips for those struggling in filmmaking inside the country? Even simple documentary films have become difficult.
I believe the beginning lies in letting your naivety and curiosity guide you. I believe the matter is the same between documentary and fiction, especially from my work as an editor. In a documentary, it depends on gathering materials, so the moment of filming a bird perched on a branch might become part of your film. Gathering materials ends with the decision to stop searching and start editing.
Amidst this curious momentum, one must acquire the principles of production: “Cut and Paste,” and what accompanies that in blending sounds and music. All of that is available in free programs. The rest depends on your understanding of the world and your intuition… capturing the stories of grandmothers while they are present, even with a mobile camera. In the moment where the “engineering of the story” begins, you produce a third meaning, and the meaning branches out by adding music and sounds. A voice inside you will become clear later, and then you proceed to think about the complexities of the narrative; that only comes at a later stage. What matters fundamentally is the composition of the story in your mind.
That is impossible without reading and watching the world’s films.
Of course.
In fiction films, there is an ongoing debate regarding the “author’s intent”… what he means by that shot or that dialogue… Do you think the director’s intent is important in a documentary film?
Yes and no. If you respect the subject of the film and are honest, but without sanctifying the subject, I believe the viewer will respect your film. But if you do not care about the viewer’s reaction, why produce films at all? Respect for the viewer comes from respecting their intelligence; so ask yourself, “Is what I am installing in the montage logical? Am I satisfied with this composition?” These are questions that cross the mind of the filmmaker during editing. The questions become more complex in fiction films. Fiction filmmakers suffer more in the issue of accepting their visions. In documentary film, the shot often comes to you without intention during the editing phase. As an editor, I see no difference between documentary and fiction, because the elements of composition are the same, and thus I prefer working as an editor because it carries fewer burdensome responsibilities than preparation and directing.
In your two films, there is a political orientation; you are loyal to the February revolution and loyal to the organized struggle against Apartheid. How do you present your subject without insulting your opponents?
The trick lies in making a personal film; you reveal a statement related to you personally and to your family. These are all tools that help you in making a personal film.
Meaning you do not work as a journalist…
Yes, you can say what you like. But the matter has consequences. The film was to be screened at the Luxor African Film Festival, for example, but the government banned the film. The Egyptians loved the film, but their government didn’t.
I did not favor the question about your advice to filmmakers in Libya because the society does not welcome the idea to begin with, or let us say is not eager for a “Libyan cinema.”
For this reason, Muhannad Lamin produces his films outside Libya, as does Naziha Arebi. I am also outside Libya.
Is it possible to say that there is a Libyan “new wave” abroad?
Yes, why not?
The common factor between you, Muhannad Lamin, Naziha Arebi, and others, is making documentaries… Fiction remains a mirage even in the conditions available outside Libya. Perhaps the wave begins with documentaries abroad, then fiction abroad, then documentaries inside Libya, and finally fiction inside Libya…
Yes. Stories do not end, and we do not know what tomorrow hides in terms of films and directors.
Countries of Production: Libya – South Africa – Qatar. Year of Production: 2021. Running Time: 73 minutes. Genre: Documentary. Written and Directed by: Khalid Shamis. Awards: Best Director in the Documentary Category, South African Film and Television Awards (the South African Oscars). Evaluation: Worth Watching.
1
It is almost unnecessary to remind the reader of the diverse spectrum of the Libyan resistance, which began weakly in 1969 and grew stronger as Gaddafi consolidated his power following the Zuwara speech in 1973. The newbie republic transformed from a liberator of the poor into an authoritarian power that, as the speech’s opening declared, “suspended all existing laws.” It remained a republic in name only until it revealed its true face with the declaration of the “people’s authority” in 1977.
Thus, in the 1980s, Gaddafi’s Jamahiriya coined the term “stray dogs” (al-kilab al-dalla): the resistance fighters whom his regime had hunted since the early 1970s. This suspension of laws included a ban on political parties, turning every liberal, communist, and Muslim Brotherhood member into a “stray dog” to be imprisoned by military courts or forced into exile.
It is from this starting point that the Libyan-British-South African filmmaker, Khalid Shamis, begins his excavation into the history of his father, Ashour Shamis, an opposition figure who joined the National Front for the Salvation of Libya in the early 1980s. It may be said, moreover, that the term spread among Libyans with the appearance of Faraj Elasha on Al Jazeera at the dawn of the new millennium. Elasha, too, was a “stray dog,” drawing from a political orientation opposed to that of Shamis. Yet the orientation opposing both of them was the Jamahiriya, which unified their “strayness.”
2
The sound of the sea is not so different from the echoes of war—or so it seems in our imagination, which has been fused to the front lines since they first ignited in 2011. Perhaps the metaphor is cemented by the Arabic phonetic resemblance between bahr (sea) and harb (war). Whatever the case, Shamis begins his film with the sea and the sound of its waves, seen from a moving car. The sound of the waves is accompanied by a recorded child’s voice, reminding his uncle of the sea and of better times.
The camera’s movement on the road then shifts to the opposite direction: here, the vehicle transports soldiers on a battlefront. The sound is no longer an accompaniment but an integral part of the image of war—the military advance of the “rebels” during the armed uprising.
This is a conventional opening, one we often see in narratives that intend to investigate the line between peace and war, seriousness and play. When we first hear the news of Gaddafi’s death announced in English, and then see a gleeful Hillary Clinton reading it on her phone, we understand that the film is presenting its subject to the world, not just to Libyans. The third narrative layer comes from Khalid Shamis himself, who comments that his father fought against Gaddafi’s rule to an extent that surpassed his concern for his own family.
The film officially begins with its title card: The Colonel’s Stray Dogs, juxtaposed with the visual paradox of a rose. (Flowers are a recurring visual motif in the film, accompanying the journey between Libya and Britain).
3
We are in London, specifically in the south. The camera is on the road again, recalling the film’s opening, but this time, the peace of the sea is replaced by trees and the tranquility of the English suburbs. From here, Khalid narrates his father’s brief biography through the lens of his own. His dissident father is a son of the Nafusa Mountains, south of Tripoli; he, however, is a son of Croydon, south of London. Just as he reminds us of the mountain’s central role in the resistance against the Italian occupation in western Libya, he notes his own, entirely different upbringing, born far from any Libyan violence, whether against the Italians or against Gaddafi.
Through the camera, we enter Ashour Shamis’s home and realize that the child’s voice from the beginning of the film belongs to a collection of cassette tapes recorded in the 1970s, sent to him by his family, as was the custom back then. In one of his sessions with his inquisitive son, Ashour doesn’t hide his mockery of the Jamahiriya’s intelligence services, revealing his own file, which he obtained after the 2011 uprising. In the file, which classifies him as a stray dog, we read that he teaches “heresy” in the “city of Manchester United”—which, by the way, is located in London. The foolishness is twofold.
But the foolishness of the Jamahiriya’s intelligence, completely ignorant of world geography, resulted in the murder of dissidents who had spread across the globe, with a concentrated presence in Europe, especially Britain. The assassinations began in the early 1980s, with the killing of Yvonne Fletcher becoming the spark for a diplomatic war with the West. This was followed by the Berlin bombing, the predictable American airstrikes in 1986, and finally, the Lockerbie incident in 1988. It was a decade of violence, crowned by the Chad war, in which the Salvation Front participated against Gaddafi. The documentary reveals the details of the Front’s operations through archives and interviews. As we understand from Ashour’s reflections on those events, that decade may have marked the end of the organized Libyan opposition as a viable alternative.
4
Documentaries about political struggle—at least in mainstream cinema—often navigate the space between the personal and the public. They either start from the director’s own perspective or present their subject “objectively.” We also know that many critics believe that the act of writing or presenting a biography is inherently an expression of the creator’s own autobiography.
Between these two poles, we see the subject alive in the person of Ashour Shamis, unlike filmmakers who must probe the depths of a subject who is no longer living. Here, Ashour himself tells us about the consequences of his choices, as well as facts and testimonies. He clearly states his early affiliation with a political orientation hostile to Nasserism, meaning he opposed the “Al-Fateh Revolution” from its inception. He also doesn’t hide his Islamist political leanings, while emphasizing a constitutional-democratic framework.
On the other side, Khalid’s investigative vision emerges from cinema’s audacity in uncovering a person’s hidden depths. He even resolves to sit with his mother and ask her: “Was my father a terrorist?” He poses this question in defiance of the Western media’s official definition of terrorism, which once saw the fighters against the Soviet invasion as legitimate “mujahideen” and “freedom fighters” (a term for which I have found no official Arabic translation), only to later see them as terrorists. This led to the collapse of any coherent definition, culminating in the “condemnation of Hamas.” Khalid stresses to his mother that he is only questioning whether his father was a terrorist or a freedom fighter. She rejects the question, because terrorism means killing innocent people.
Woven into this courageous exploration is Khalid’s own voiceover, which shifts between poetry and prose. Neither serves to clarify his own opinion on the Libyan issue, but rather to observe the mental reflections created in the far north, with his small family, distant from his extended family in the deep south. He muses on his father’s way of making tea, his snoring naps in the living room of their quiet home, in a second exile—far from the Libya that we, the Libyans imprisoned within it, know.
When I was a teenager, I desperately wanted to silence everyone who mockingly asked me about the point of watching movies. I wanted a convincing answer that would clear me of the crime of wasting my time on pointless trivialities. But I couldn’t do it. All I had was the enjoyment that was the entire purpose of that “wasted” time. I even hid my interest in cinema out of a sense of shame, trying to avoid a stigma I didn’t know how to refute.
But I thought to myself back then: even if I couldn’t justify my carelessness, I felt that every creative work I consumed was making me a better person.
I didn’t have the ability to answer their sarcastic questions, nor could I explain why I considered the world of cinema a place that always made me better than I was before. It wasn’t until later that I realized the question about the “usefulness” of cinema is, at its core, a question about the meaning of culture itself.
How is a Conversation About Cinema a Conversation About Culture?
Four years ago, I heard the Kuwaiti writer Buthaina Al-Essa describe culture as a huge house with many rooms. In one room, we find cinema; in another, the novel; in a third, music; in a fourth, theater; and in the rest, all other forms of creative work. Language, however, is not one of these rooms. Instead, it is the light that illuminates the entire house, because it is the tool we use to shape and transmit everything cultural.
This description made me realize that culture is not just a collection of facts that one memorizes to show off. It is a blend of concepts produced by those who came before us. It is not something static, but a comprehensive climate in which we live. It begins with ideas and beliefs and ends with the simplest details of our lives: what we wear, how we speak, how we think and act. Are we as capable of analyzing, connecting, critiquing, and expressing ourselves as we are of eating and drinking?
For this reason, and from this point forward, we will talk about cinema as a vital part of the concept of culture.
How Does Cinema Create a Cultured Individual?
Most would agree that films are one of the most important cultural outputs of humanity. This means they are a direct product of our collective mind, values, and imagination. Cinema records historical and social moments not from the perspective of a historian, but from that of an ordinary person. This is why historians can study societies through their films, because they preserve a visual and emotional memory of the times, expressing how people then saw themselves and the world around them. But have any of us ever considered the real impact of cinema on the formation of the individual?
A person who engages with cultural products like cinema is not just influenced by the content; their entire cognitive and emotional structure is rewired.
Every viewing adds a new layer to a person’s consciousness, making them see the world from multiple, different angles. They come to understand that truth is not absolute but relative. From here, the capacity for critical thinking is born. They no longer see things just as they are presented, but as they could be. Because every film is a new perceptual experience, the viewer learns to see details and hidden cues. Over time, their mind is trained to read reality the way it reads a cinematic scene—with analysis and connection.
Furthermore, watching different cultures fosters an ability to understand and empathize with the “other,” even if one cannot adopt their views. Art trains the mind to connect unexpected things, and with time, a faculty for creativity develops, one that sees the hidden relationships between different ideas. Eventually, the person becomes capable of creating and expressing these connections themselves.
Most importantly, they may, over time, acquire an intense desire to express all the images, ideas, feelings, and arts that have accumulated in their mind. This desire grows until it turns into small attempts, then real experiments, until they discover they have begun to translate themselves into their own work. They start to create something new in the house of culture. At that stage, they transform from a consumer into a producer.
What Happens to an Individual Who Ignores the Value of Cultural Outputs (Like Cinema), Seeing Them as an Unnecessary Luxury?
They become an uncultured individual! Before you object to that description, let’s imagine a person who lacks the faculty for critical and creative thinking, the ability to connect, plan, analyze, and express themselves. What is left of this person? Nothing.
These faculties are what create a cultured individual. When we talk about culture here, we don’t mean the information one possesses from studying dry sciences, but the skills that enable a person to understand and change reality. Culture is the climate that nurtures all our practices, the framework within which a society’s values, behaviors, and worldview are formed. It determines how we understand work and authority, how we view women and the law, and how we build the concepts of good and evil within our collective consciousness.
Therefore, an uncultured individual is not just someone uninterested in the arts; they are an element that threatens the cohesion of society, because they lack the awareness that organizes their behavior within the human and social fabric.
Looking at it practically, when the cinemas in Libya were turned into drab warehouses and all cultural expression was exiled on the grounds that it was a luxury the people didn’t need, the fabric of society began to actually collapse. The absence of cultural expression doesn’t just produce an artistic void; it creates an individual who is internally fragile, dry in their behavior, and lacking the tools for thought and expression. When consciousness is deprived of culture, it weakens. Societies transform into entities that are quick to anger, poor in imagination, and incapable of dialogue. This is precisely the state of our Libyan society today.
For this reason, we can say with confidence: an uncultured individual is a ticking time bomb that destroys the fabric of society.
So, How Does Cinema Contribute to the Survival of Society?
We have agreed that cinema is one of the most important cultural outputs, that culture is the nurturing climate for all our practices, and that our problems are always, first and foremost, cultural problems. To solve them, we will need a cultured individual who holds important tools in their hands: the ability to analyze, connect, and plan; to think critically and creatively.
When we face a problem in an institution, we might think it is technical or administrative, when in reality it is a cultural problem. For example, when an employee sees their job as a worthless burden, the issue is not with their ability but with their culture of work. When states impose stifling censorship on thought and shut down cinemas and all artistic venues, the issue is not legal but a culture of control. Culture is what creates our way of understanding the world. Unless it changes, the same mistakes will be repeated, no matter how many people or laws we change.
When we realize that every crisis in society is, at its core, a crisis of culture, we understand that the remedy is not found in laws or dry speeches, but in the formation of the cultured individual. And that individual is not made through theoretical lectures, but through continuous exposure to cultural outputs. This means: they must read, they must watch, they must listen, and they must taste art.
Every interaction with a creative work is indirect training in critical and creative thinking, in analysis and connection, in sensing beauty and meaning. Only then do societies begin to transform from chaos to consciousness, from consumption to production, and from randomness to creativity. Because culture, quite simply, is what restores humanity into humans.
Abdellah Al-Zarruq is one of the foundational pillars of film directing in Libya. Born in Tripoli in 1952, he began his career as a theater prompter before joining the Libyan Theater Troupe. He later worked at the General Cinema Organization and then served as the director of the National Center for Cinema, under the General Authority for Cinema, Theater, and Arts. He has contributed numerous films to Libyan cinema, in addition to many television series.
In a conversation with the Libya Film Institute blog, Al-Zarruq spoke about his journey in filmmaking and how the encouragement of his supporters raised the ceiling of his ambitions, helping him become one of Libya’s most prominent directors. He has produced more than 20 films despite significant challenges and a lack of financial support, driven by his belief in cinema’s impact on society—an art form that, regardless of ideas or ideologies, fights for a better world.
1- How did you take your first steps into cinematography?
Ever since I was sixteen years old in 1967, I have been practicing cinematography with a Super 8mm camera. I would film all the events in the city of Tripoli and show them to my neighbors, family, and friends. It became my life’s dream to be a filmmaker. In 1968, I founded the Arab Amateur Cinematographers’ Union within the Libyan Theater Troupe, and that was the real starting point of my journey.
2- What do you consider the most significant milestones in your life?
When the producer Ali al-Haloudi offered me the chance to work with him on the film When Fate Becomes Hard, starring Omar al-Shwerif, Zahra Mesbah, and Abdullah al-Shawash. I was overwhelmed with joy to take that first professional step, which I consider a bold and crucial leap for my dreams. The encouragement and solidarity from my fellow artists were incredibly important and effective, and they raised my ambition to produce a purely Libyan cinema.
3- How many films have you directed?
I have directed 22 films for Libyan cinema, including: Defeat of Darkness, Autobiography of a Cigarette Seller, The Exiles, The Sun Will Not Set on My City, Verses from an Epic of Love, The Wings, Little Dreams, and Symphony of Rain, among others. I have also directed television series like And Fate Willed It and Certainty, as well as television films such as The Wall, The Other Side of the Moon, Scent of the Night, The Ceremony, and Jasmine Flower. In these works, I explored women’s struggles for a better life, social problems, and dreams for the future.
4- How do you describe art and cinema?
Cinema is the weapon of the century; it is the most powerful art form of our time. There is no other art that can penetrate the world, spread ideas, and fight for a better world—regardless of differing ideas and ideologies—as cinema can.
5- Some people see cinema as an art form with no real impact. What is your response to that?
That is incorrect. If you look at global cinema, you’ll find that it generates profits exceeding those of massive factories, thanks to the technology used to produce films. I was honored that my film When Fate Becomes Hard was one of the first drama films in my country. We did it to open all doors for our creators to reach the world and present our ideas, because we are an important part of the world, and the world must get to know our culture, traditions, and customs.
6- What is required to advance Libyan cinema?
Film production requires large budgets for equipment, whether renting or buying. This is what has been behind the delay in Libyan film production for so many years, especially after Libya once possessed the latest technology in the 1970s. Now, with technological advancements, renting equipment has become extremely expensive. The role now falls to the General Cinema Authority to provide modern equipment and contribute budgets to elevate the seventh art.
We were fortunate in the old days to be able to produce our films and achieve our dreams. Now, things have become much more difficult.
7- Does Libya have real movie theaters?
Cinema worldwide is about two things: production and exhibition. But we are without an exhibition. We live in a country with no movie theaters because they were seized, and this is a heartbreaking situation. Our productions are left with little value except for participating in festivals abroad, without the presence of the Libyan viewer who wishes to see the work of their own artists.
8- What is your message to the new generation of aspiring filmmakers?
We have a group of young people who have presented cinematic works that have been met with acceptance and admiration at festivals. A filmmaker presents their work to their homeland before they present it to festivals. I am proud of these young people. I have seen their work, which they produced with their own money, and they have fought for a purely Libyan cinema.
Year of Production: 1981 Running Time: 167 minutes Genre: Historical / War / Biographical Directed by: Moustapha Akkad Evaluation: Worth Watching
It is difficult to speak of Arab cinema without pausing at the legacy of Moustapha Akkad, the Syrian director whose ambitions transcended the limits of the Arab film industry of his time. He sought to create films with profound human and historical depth. Omar Mukhtar – Lion of the Desert (1981) will forever remain a unique work, not only in Akkad’s career but in both Libyan and Arab memory. It documented a pivotal era of the Libyan national resistance against Italian colonialism, articulating it in a universal language with Western cinematic tools, but with a purely Eastern spirit.
The Film: Between History and Cinema
The film is a cinematic biography of Omar Mukhtar, the “Sheikh of Martyrs” and leader of the Libyan resistance against the Italian occupation in the first half of the 20th century.
Akkad presented the story with a cohesive narrative structure, adhering to a linear, historical timeline without the leaps or narrative manipulations that might confuse the viewer. This choice gave the film a documentary-like stability, positioning it as a classic historical epic. At the same time, however, it lent a certain monotony to some of its dialogue-driven scenes.
Dramatically, the director balanced Mukhtar’s heroic dimension with the human side of his character. Mukhtar is not a static legend but a man of faith, convinced of the justice of his cause, who faces death with unshakable conviction. This balanced portrayal allowed the character to transcend his local context and become a universal symbol of the struggle against colonialism.
Performance and Acting
Akkad cast Anthony Quinn in the role of Mukhtar, a choice that sparked controversy but proved to be an artistic success. Quinn conveyed the image of the stoic sheikh with a quiet dignity, free of exaggeration. He relied on his gaze and an internal rhythm rather than overt emotion, which gave the character a rare authenticity in historical cinema.
Alongside him, Oscar-winner Rod Steiger excelled as Mussolini, and Oliver Reed as General Graziani, embodying the arrogance of European power and its condescending view of colonized peoples. However, some of the secondary characters appeared to lack depth, their dialogue written to serve a documentary function rather than a dramatic one.
Directorial Vision and Technical Aspects
Akkad deserves credit for delivering a work that rivaled Hollywood productions in its technical scale, at a time when Arab cinema’s resources were limited. The film’s budget reached approximately $35 million, funded directly by Libya, while its box office revenue barely exceeded $1 million due to being banned in some countries and its poor distribution in the United States.
The entire film was shot on location in Libya, specifically in Jebel Al-Akhdar, Benghazi, and the desert of Sirte. Hundreds of Libyan extras were used to depict the resistance battles, lending the work a high degree of visual authenticity.
Technically, Akkad assembled a world-class crew:
Director of Photography: Jack Hildyard, an Oscar winner for The Bridge on the River Kwai.
Musical Score: Maurice Jarre, the composer behind the music of Lawrence of Arabia.
The camera moves slowly in moments of contemplation and accelerates in battle scenes, while the score complements the sense of heroism tinged with sorrow.
Historical Accuracy vs. Dramatic Representation
The film sparked considerable debate over its historical accuracy. While Arab historians praised its precision in conveying the suffering of Libyans under occupation, some Italian historians criticized what they described as an “exaggeration of the brutality of Italian forces.” These criticisms, however, did not undermine the film’s core, as it is a work that seeks to show the truth from the perspective of the victims, not the invaders. I must also mention the talk among some about the film’s portrayal of certain historical Libyan figures as traitors, framed within a particular political vision.
Premiere and Reactions
The film premiered in Tripoli in 1981 at an official ceremony attended by Akkad and several senior Libyan officials. It was met with a wide popular reception in Libya and across the Arab world. In contrast, some Western entities expressed reservations due to its anti-colonialist tone, which only enhanced its symbolism as a voice for the oppressed.
Political Controversy and the Ban in Italy
In 1982, the Italian government issued a decision to ban the film, deeming it “an insult to the honor of the Italian army.” The ban remained in effect for over 25 years. The film was not shown in Italy until 2009, on the Sky Italia channel, coinciding with a diplomatic visit by Muammar Gaddafi to Rome.
National Significance and Libyan Symbolism
Although the film was an international production with foreign actors, its spirit is purely Libyan. Akkad managed to capture the essence of the Libyan resistance character—a blend of faith, dignity, and stubbornness in the face of oppression. Here, the desert is not merely a backdrop but a living entity that embraces the battle between freedom and colonialism.
The film provided Libyans with a rare visual memory of their ancestors’ struggle at a time when a national cinema was virtually non-existent. It elevated Omar Mukhtar into a universal human symbol, even with the controversy surrounding political interventions in some details of the historical script.
A Balanced Critical Reading
The film has high artistic value but is not without its flaws. The dialogue often felt weak, and the film’s length (nearly three hours) caused the pacing to lag in the middle. Furthermore, Akkad’s focus on the epic scale sometimes came at the expense of developing the psychological depth of the secondary characters. Nevertheless, these observations do not diminish the film’s importance as a unique cinematic achievement.
At the time, international critics praised the quality of the direction and cinematography, but the film was a commercial failure at the box office, grossing only $1 million due to the ban in Italy and its limited distribution in the United States. Over time, however, the film has transcended its financial losses to become one of the most important historical films in the Arab world, maintaining a high rating on specialized websites.
The Film’s Legacy and Relevance
What distinguishes Lion of the Desert is that it was not just a film about the past but a visual document that remains present in the Libyan consciousness. Through it, the meaning of resistance is renewed as a moral value that goes beyond weapons to the defense of dignity and identity. The film has been selected for inclusion in IMDb and Arab Cinema Classics lists as one of the most prominent Arab historical films.
After Moustapha Akkad’s death in the 2005 Amman bombings, interest in the film was renewed as a tribute to his artistic legacy. It is now screened annually on Libyan national occasions and is studied in some media and cinema curricula.
Akkad succeeded in crafting a universal human discourse from Mukhtar’s story without losing its national authenticity. As much as the film carried a global directorial vision, it remained a voice from the Libyan desert, telling the world that freedom cannot be conquered, and that glory is forged not only by victory, but also by steadfastness.
Omar Mukhtar – Lion of the Desert remains an exceptional work in Arab cinematic history because it combined artistic craftsmanship with national depth. Even more than four decades after its release, it still serves as a model for how to transform a national biography into a cinematic work that respects the truth without sacrificing art.
It is not just a film about a hero, but about an entire nation that stood firm in the face of tyranny.
And though Akkad is gone, his legacy endures, reminding us that a camera can be another kind of rifle, and that honest cinema is capable of immortalizing what history sometimes fails to preserve.
Country: Libya Year: 2017 Running Time: 11:15 minutes Genre: Drama Written and Directed by: Faraj Meayouf Screenings: Alexandria International Film Festival for Mediterranean Countries, Oran International Arab Film Festival, Luxor African Film Festival, Middle East & North Africa Film Festival in the Netherlands. Evaluation: Worth Watching
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It is with the most profound regret that we, as cinephiles, are unable to watch most modern Libyan films, while the cinema of the entire planet, from all eras, is readily accessible. And on the rare occasion one of us gets lucky and snags a film here or there, these works often leave us disappointed when viewed in the context of a “global” cinema that draws from a creative spirit concerned only with relentlessly exploring the boundaries of the medium and what lies beyond.
We care deeply about the historical achievement of the event itself; the mere production of a film in Libya is a miracle that appears two or three times a year. These miracles almost always follow the straight and narrow path of the short film. It is relatively easier and cheaper.
In the aftermath of COVID-19, I became acquainted with the work of the young director Faraj Meayouf, who entered the world of cinema through its narrowest door: immediate, on-the-spot experimentation, filming whatever could be filmed with little regard for the future of his footage.
During the 2011 uprising, most Libyan filmmakers turned to documenting the war in long and short documentaries, or in narrative shorts. (As I’ve discussed with my colleagues at the Libya Film Institute, the production of a feature-length narrative film has become an event awaited with the same anticipation some have for the Mahdi and Godot combined). Our film here, however, is not concerned with current headlines, nor with “educating” the world about Libya’s recent history, a path many Libyan filmmakers now take. And I say “filmmakers” to emphasize those who take it upon themselves to write, film, and edit their own work.
Instead, this film exposes a deep wound in the body of Libyan society. In doing so, it aims to raise awareness without resorting to guidance or preaching, using a simple directorial approach that doesn’t ask much of its actors, shot in the natural light of day.
Regarding the film’s production, Faraj tells me it took shape after he read the memoirs of Abdullah Saleh (From School to the Battlefield). Mr. Abdullah is a Libyan citizen from Murzuq who, in the 1980s, was taken from his high school with his classmates to the front lines of the war with neighboring Chad. (We hear a different dialect in the film, not that of Murzuq, for death does not recognize dialects). We are not concerned here with the book’s many details or Abdullah’s harsh story, that is for another article. What matters here is the film’s work, over the course of nine minutes, on flashes from the lives of these doomed youths and the echoes left behind by the survivors.
Fair warning, spoilers ahead!
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In the opening shots, we hear a young man on the phone with his lover. He tells her he is about to finish high school and will then ask her family for her hand in marriage. But if her family is in a hurry, he says, then everything is in the hands of fate. It’s an old story, one we’ve seen on late-night television and read in the pages of “social” literature. But this conversation is taking place in a different orbit, one we come to understand in installments, sometimes through image, sometimes through sound.
We move from the sound of melodrama to the image of realism: a dilapidated boys’ school, a game of football, a mathematics class. A school guard watches over every movement in the courtyard, and sometimes, over a few stray thoughts. The sound of the radio in the guard’s room accompanies the math lesson: a citizen calls in, asking about the fate of his son who disappeared a year ago. Then, news arrives from the administration for the math teacher: tell the students to prepare for a school trip.
Sound and image finally merge in a scene where the trip’s bus driver reads a newspaper featuring the “battles of Nasser’s revolution,” while a radio announcer declares news of supposed victories on the front lines after playing the Jamahiriya’s national anthem. In my opinion, this is the film’s weakest scene; Anachronisms are concocted (Nasser’s presence in the 1980s) in a shot already saturated with symbols (the fervor of the state media versus its eventual defeat).
But we understand that short filmmakers are keen to condense meaning, and in that condensation often lies the empty symbolism I mentioned in the title. Film 205 transcends this symbolism. It leaps over its own misstep and gives more space to the teenagers’ chatter, from the secrets of their love lives to their football games – This is an approach Gus Van Sant took in his 2003 masterpiece, Elephant, which depicted the lives of high school students just before they were murdered by a classmate – by focusing on this, Meayouf places his teenagers at the center of attention, before the news of the war and its circumstances. This focus is paralleled by a shot of the teenagers’ parents, standing at the school gate like someone at a prison gate, begging for a visit through connections.
The guard plays cards alone, accompanied by the radio, which shifts from the violence of war propaganda to the weariness of families suspended in the purgatory of receiving news, not knowing the fate of their sons who were alive only yesterday. Their only aim is to know their fate for certain, even if it comes in the form of bones that point to a missing body.
The guard locks up the school, in the presence of abandoned notebooks, while we see the students sitting in a military plane.
The lightness of memory can be as bearable as its weight. With its lightness, we might obscure the truth of our emotions, especially towards the dead. With its weight, we are sometimes dragged into sanctifying them. And while we set aside the obvious literary reference to Kundera’s masterpiece, we consider the substance of Film 205: a modest film that thinks of its dead as it thinks of its living, without sanctifying or judging them.
If we are to conclude by speaking of sanctification and judgment, we can also speak of great films that did not adopt “neutrality” in their content—from Godard’s Maoist films, to the provocations of Nagisa Oshima in the far east of Japan, to the revolutionary Cinema Novo of Glauber Rocha in Brazil, the far west of the globe. With these examples, we are reminded that neutral cinema is not necessarily great cinema. Many Libyan filmmakers have become obsessed with the idea of neutrality, producing political films with no political dimension, bland works that present symbols instead of people: the dyer and the tanner, the prisoner and the guard.
Critics have long debated the filmmaker’s intention: does the director’s intent in shooting this or that scene matter? We are not concerned with Meayouf’s intention in filming his students, but with the audience’s reception of the result.
This is how the contours of Film 205 appear, both before and after symbolism. The number 205 refers to the 205 students who were dragged into the war. Out of this tragedy, the script and directorial style struggle between austerity and saturation, stumbling at times and soaring at others. And this, under miserable filming conditions (in addition to relying on personal camera equipment, the elements of the school were gathered from various sources, not to mention the painstaking coordination with authorities).
At the end of the shoot, and at the end of the viewing, 205 reveals itself to be a necessary disruption in the system of Libyan cinematic expression. It is not necessarily a revolutionary film, but in its nine minutes, it creates a prelude to a “national” cinema that masters the many tools of filmmaking without preaching or wallowing in melodrama, using the simplest of words and the most straightforward of shots.
