Philippe Aractingi - Writer, Director & Producer
Born in 1964, Philippe Aractingi left Lebanon at the age of 19, heading to London and then Paris with the set idea on becoming a director. Two years later, he returned to be hired by the Lebanese television network LBC. He made his first documentary, after which he produced the French-speaking TV program "Mosaic", and went on making documentaries and short films about the war, aired on Antenne 2, Canal + and Radio Canada. Once again fleeing the war, he returned to France where he worked on Envoyé Spécial, one of the country's top-rating TV programs, as well as on films for France 3 and TF1. At the age of 28, he decided to pack his bags and travel around the world. He ended up making films for Discovery Channel, Learning Channel USA, BskyB in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Mongolia, South Africa, Sri-Lanka, among others. After 12 years spent abroad, Philippe returned to Lebanon to make BOSTA - the Autobus. To date, Philippe Aractingi has made over 40 documentary films. Award winner of the Carat Academy, he has participated in various international festivals, and gained many awards, including Grand Jury prize at the Film Festival of Beirut in 1997 for "The Dream of the Acrobat Child", and the Special Jury Prize at the Days of African and Creole Cinema in Montreal in 1995, as well as the Gold Medal of the Jeux de la Francophonie in Paris in 1994 for "Beirut, of stones and memories." BOSTA (2005) is his first feature film. In 2007, he directed a second feature film: UNDER THE BOMBS / SOUS LES BOMBES.