In response to the war between Russia and Ukraine, the Pompidou Centre's festival called "Hors Pistes" (in English: off track) has decided to dedicate this 18th edition to war representations and the challenges of peace. The festival runs for a month and has started on January 20. It offers a range of events, exhibitions, performances, round tables, documentaries and fiction films.
"This year, our film department chose to invite French / Lebanese filmmaker Danielle Arbid. We wanted to screen six of her films, which all deal with war, like most of the works in the first part of her filmography. We asked her to produce a new short film for the festival 'Off Track'. She did and the short film is called 'A Killer'." - Éva Marcovits, film programmer of the "Off Track" festival (interview given in L'Orient-le-Jour).
Arbid's short film"A Killer" is constructed around a dialogue between a journalist, played by Danielle Arbid, and a former militiaman of the Lebanese civil war. When asked about his victims, he delivers a chilling speech that indirectly raises the question of evil.
Danielle Arbid has directed and produced films since 1997. Her fiction films, "Simple Passion" (adaptation of Annie Ernaux's book of the same name, 2021), "Fear of Nothing", "A Lost Man", "In the Battlefields", were selected for the most important international festivals (Cannes, San Sebastian, Toronto, New York, Busan, Tokyo...) and have received numerous awards. For several years, she has been working on a series whose protagonists are the members of her family. The series is entitled "My Lebanese Family". In this context, her video "Allô Chérie" (in English "Hello Darling") was presented at the Venice Biennale 2022.