“If we want to get better we have to be more criticizing and try to change things”. Waves ’98 is a short animated film written and directed by Ely Dagher. It is the only animation movie to be nominated for the Short Film Palme d’Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. The film tells the story of Omar, a high-school kid living in the suburbs of Beirut in the late 1990s, struggling with his disillusionment with his social bubble. The film is a meditation on Dagher’s relationship with Beirut, his hometown, since he traveled to Brussels.

You started your movie by going into Omar’s brain, what is inside a Lebanese brain?

In general I don’t know but I can tell that in Omar’s brain represent the two narratives. There are two sets, one of them in 1990’s when life in Beirut was more optimistic. The war was over and we started rebuilding. There is another layer about the present situation in Lebanon which is not very positive or optimistic. I know from my parents that this is one of the worst times they have worked and lived in Beirut.

You used the news jingle of a very well known Lebanese Channel in Lebanon, do you think Lebanese brains are contaminated by the news?

When I was in Lebanon I used to watch the news all the time and it was very depressing. And when the Arab Spring started I had to follow up the news and I couldn’t just ignore it. It just becomes addictive.

Did you change your vision about Beirut when lived abroad?

I think when you live in Beirut you have to be disconnected from the political problems but when you go out you are much more aware of them. It becomes more difficult to come back to that bubble and be disconnected.

Why did you choose to make an animated movie?

It fits much better with the script. I wrote the script before deciding how I am going to do it. In the movie, I have chosen a surreal world. If I had done it in the real environment it would have been very different and not that abstract.

Do you believe anything will change in Lebanon? And do you think immigration is a solution?

I don’t want to be pessimistic. I always hoped that things are going to change. I don’t think that immigration is a solution. If we want to get better we have to be more criticizing and try to change things.

Omar said in the movie “I don’t want to end up like them”, how do the Lebanese end up in their country?

The situation is not that bad. You can live with it and the Lebanese people got used to it. Everyone is saying that nothing will ever change. For me, it is bad. Omar found his bubble with his friends in the whole chaos. Lebanese look for chances and opportunities abroad and this is why they travel.

Interview by Carmen Joukhadar