Trainings

The Jocelyne Saab Association was born from a commitment to restore Jocelyne Saab’s archival footage in Lebanon. Conceived for administrative purposes as a French counterpart to the Cultural Resistance association founded by Jocelyne Saab in 2014, the AJS emerged in 2019 amid the urgent need to revive these images in Lebanon, as the country once again faced a profound economic, social, and political crisis.
To enable the re-emergence of the footage Saab captured during the civil war, film restoration became essential. Beyond the unavailability of a significant portion of her filmography—which required digitisation—the endeavour also aimed to restore a living memory, granting it renewed relevance and inviting audiences to embark on a journey of cinematic and historical discovery.
To carry out the majority of this restoration work within Lebanon, it was necessary to raise awareness among technicians regarding the stakes of film preservation. Leveraging the recognised expertise of Lebanon’s post-production companies, fruitful collaborations were established: around ten technicians were trained through a series of workshops and successfully completed the restoration of Jocelyne Saab’s first fifteen documentaries.