Collective memory and Middle Eastern cinema: Reflections of collective traumas on Lebanese cinema

Collective memory, which is based on the argument that remembering and forgetting are experienced within a social framework, is a dynamic mechanism that reproduces the identities of societies and individuals. In the Middle East, which has a history of collective traumas, collective memory continues to maintain its importance in this sense. Described as the Middle East of the Middle East and built on a sectarian social and political system, Lebanon is a country where identity differences have turned into conflicts. This study, which deals with how collective traumas in Lebanon are reflected in its cinema, focuses especially on the period between 2005 and 2020, which is called the Renaissance Period of Lebanese cinema. For this purpose, Nadine Labaki's Where Do We Go Now?, Vatche Boulghourjian's Tramontane, Ziad Doueiri's The Insult, Ahmad Ghossein's All This Victory and Joana Hadjithomas / Khalil Joreige's Memory Box were selected as samples and these films were analysed under the themes of past, space, identity and trauma, which are the components of collective memory. The reflections of collective memory on Lebanese cinema, which has started to make its voice heard in the world cinema through international festivals, especially in the recent period, were investigated by supporting the analysis of the selected sample films as well as field research.