​سرِّك سهل 
Plain Secret 

2017 / 60' / Lebanon / Documentary /  Arabic with French subtitles
A film by Roy Dib
Commissioned by The Association For The Promotion And Exhibition of Arts in Lebanon - APEAL 
With the support of: Fondation Robert Matta - Swiss Embassy - Studio CurArt
Director of Photography: Karim Ghorayeb
Sound Mixer: Rawad Hobeika
Sound Designer: Rana Eid – db studios
Grading: Belal Hibri – Lucid

Workshop coordinators: Chrystele Khodr and Hashem Adnan (Zoukak Theatre Company)
Workshop participants: Asmahan Haydar, Ahmad Kassab, Batoul Kasem, Hadi El Miselmani, Imad Mortada, Khaled Hamdo, Mohamad Wehbeh, Omar El Soleh, Rateb El Affe
With the participation of: Rima EL Husseini

​APEAL, invited by Studiocur/art to implement an artistic community outreach project in parallel with “The Silent Echo Exhibition” that took place in September and October 2016, had commissioned Zoukak to lead a performance based project with the elderly population of Baalbek. This project consisted of a series of workshops and was concluded by a performance during the final weekend of the exhibition.
Following a successful collaboration in the Ras Masqa “Artists in Residence” program by APEAL/BeMa during the summer of 2016, APEAL has chosen Dib, the award winning Lebanese filmmaker (Teddy Award 2014), to fully document the community outreach program in Baalbek through filming of the workshops and final performance.

“This experience goes beyond the documentation and archiving of an artistic project, for it gives local communities and the larger public the opportunity to relate to art through creating their own performances and through appearing in parallel in a documentary, that will expose their work and showcase it to a wider audience”, said Roy Dib.

In “Plain Secret”, Dib’s lens follows the participants to the workshops in their daily lives and into the city of Baalbek itself. It reaches out to an age group often neglected by community outreach programs in the arts, and gives the residents of Baalbek a real voice in a cultural claim to their city and memory. Among its many benefits, this documentary is a permanent trace of ephemeral workshops and a performance that has so far not been repeated, and it constitutes important documentation for APEAL, Zoukak, and all the participants to the projects.

Text by APEAL