Arte Spotlights Beirut

French-German TV channel Arte is one of the best out there if you ask me – the perfect mix between culture and entertainment, between mainstream and alternative, between conventional and eccentric, between European and rest-of-world.

In your face, Big Brother: Try stopping it now!

And it’s about to get even better for the Lebanese public:

Next Friday January 20th at 9:35 PM Beirut time, Arte will air “Beyrouth Hotel”, Danielle Arbid’s most recent film that was banned in Lebanon for allegedly being “dangerous for Lebanon’s Security”.

Better than waiting for the movie to appear in the back drawers of pirated DVD shops, Arte gives us the chance to see it in all legality on TV. I wonder how our dear censorship bureau feels about that.

For those who miss it then there are two late night re-runs the following week: January 26th at 01:15 AM and January 30th at 03:55 AM.

Another Arte show of interest is the sequence “Prochain arrêt : Beyrouth” made by Pierre Aboujaoude. The five chapter series (~25 minutes each) airs every day this week (started yesterday January 16th) at 7:05 PM Beirut time, and again every weekday next week (Jan 23rd) at 9:00 AM.

Also worth noting is Arte’s service Arte+7, which allows to view all programs online for the whole week following their airtime.

Enjoy the show!