Georges Nasser

Georges Nasser (‎; 15 June 1927 – 23 January 2019) was a Lebanese director. He is considered to have been a pioneering figure in Lebanese cinema and is credited with having put Lebanon on global movie-making map.

Early life Nasser was born in Tripoli on 15 June 1927, the fifth of 11 children. He attended the School of the Holy Hearts until the age of 7 and then the College of the Brothers of the Holy Family. During his childhood he was a keen fan of film, watching up to eight a week at the cinema. Nasser moved to California to attend UCLA and became one the first Arab filmmakers to obtain a film degree in the United States. Though he had originally intended to study architecture as he was unaware that cinema studies was a subject. At UCLA he met fellow film students George Roy Hill and John Ford. After sixty years, the film was screened again in its restored print version as part of the Cannes Classics events in 2017, after which Nasser, who is known as the "Father of Lebanese Cinema" received a standing ovation. Although his career was cut short by the Lebanese civil war, he has mentored a new generation of Lebanese filmmakers Nasser also attempted to establish a film-making syndicate in the aftermath of the war. In the 1990s he began a project to create a film of the life of Egyptian actress Faten Hamama entitled Lee Ouyon al-Nas but it was never completed.

Filmography Ila Ayn? (1957) The film known in French as Vers L'Inconnu, was a mix of melodrama and Italian neo-realism, The film examines poetically the themes of exile and emigration. It tells the story of a family from an obscure village in Mount Lebanon. Because the family is struggling, the father decides, like most men in the Levant at the time, to immigrate to Brazil, leaving his wife to raise the children, but he’s never heard from again. Nasser made the film at a time when Lebanon had a fledgling film industry, and so his cast was completely nonprofessional.

The Small Stranger (1962) His second feature, The Small Stranger (or Le Petit Étranger) was also selected for Cannes in 1962.