الجهة الخامسة أول فيلم لبناني حول الاجتياح والمقاومة ..مجلة فن التصوير اللبنانية _ع٢٠

Cinema.. The Fifth Side, the first Lebanese film about the invasion and resistance

in the context of cinematography. We stand for the first time with a Lebanese film in the stages of its filming, entitled - The Fifth Side. Directed by Sobhi Seif El-Din, starring Ahmed El-Zein, photographed by Ahmed Mohsen.
It deals with a local national issue and its events revolve according to the requirements of the text on the land of southern Lebanon, and starting from the post-Israeli invasion of Lebanon - in 1982 - until the emergence of the Lebanese national resistance.

Ground bombardment of warships and planes working to drop the latest weapons of destruction produced by the Western genius. This is the beginning of the movie...
Israel occupied the south of Lebanon, and while it was at the gates of Beirut, the opposite exodus towards the occupation appeared - it was preceded by a migration from the south to Beirut with the beginning of the invasion - and people were surprised that what was called - the security of the Galilee, turned into a real and permanent occupation of the land and of the people .. Hence the features of the resistance begin to appear Operations begin, and the movie The Fifth Side begins with it.

Shooting in the midst of missiles

The first scenes of the film were filmed in Beirut, especially the internal scenes and some external scenes that take place in the capital, or rather its suburbs as mentioned in the text.

And for more realism in portraying the atmosphere of war, random shells fell on filming sites more than once. Thus, filmmakers meet with photographers within the framework of the risks of working on serious films about the reality of war. And in tense security conditions -
We mention here that the Lebanese war, which affected many photographers, and in our memory, Abd al-Razzaq al-Sayyid and Adnan Karaki did not spare cinematographers.
The important thing is that the filming period in Beirut passed well, and because moving to filming in the south where the natural locations for the events are not available due to the presence of the enemy on its land, the film workers moved to the Bekaa region to continue filming their film.
In the Bekaa, the workers were exposed to a different kind of danger. In some remote areas, where filming took place, it was difficult to convince people that what they were seeing was an imaginary invasion and imaginary battles, especially when they saw in front of them mechanisms painted with Israeli slogans and Hebrew writings, along with soldiers in Israeli clothes, also for the requirements of filming and when required. to people from these rural areas.
Gathering according to the film's need for human groups, and instructions are given to confront the enemy. . As is happening now and in reality in the southern square, the people in the Bekaa used to turn the confrontation into real battles, even if they served to shoot the film with emotions and attacks.

Real, but it is not without the danger that hit the director and a number of actors with stones and almost caused the destruction of cameras and some other equipment.

Why the fifth side?

And in a question to director Sobhi Seif El-Din about the reason for naming the film, The Fifth Side,
He said to the art of photography - except for the initial explanation that the south turned to another side that attracts the attention of the four sides.
Thanks to the heroic resistance going on in his land,
Van - The fifth side, in my opinion, is the side of the great choice... Choosing death with conviction and heroism...
The fifth aspect is the aspect in which a person finds another meaning for his life embodied in martyrdom.

- Artists and technicians on the fifth side

The film includes a good number of actors, in addition to the human groups that contributed to its success
Scenes of uprisings, confrontations and sit-ins, which the film abounds in.
The tournament is for Ahmed Al-Zein, Samir Shams and Suhair Salhani with Nadia Hamdi, Ali Al-Zein, Abdullah Faridi Mahdi, Hajj Hassan Samir, Hajj Muhammad Tlis and Zaki Hammoud.
- He worked as a photography assistant, then as a photographer, the director of photography Ahmed Mohsen - the Lebanese director Muhammad Salman, and he has twenty-five years of experience in the field of cinematography, most of which was a cameraman - and he enters as a director of photography for the first time with the movie The Fifth Side,
Masoud Yassin assists him as a photography assistant.
The film is a story and dialogue by Rafik Nasrallah, a script and directed by Sobhi Seif El-Din
Assistant director Zuhair Mansour and Saeed Barakat, Scriet Raafat Haider
Hussein Al-Sayed, an expert in explosives and cinematic deceptions. Photography by colleague Ali Saif Al-Din.