18 October 2007
SIDON: Lebanese director Mohammad Sarji won first prize at the International Ecological Film Festival in the French region of Bourges for his film "La Montagne de Saida" (Sidon Mountain). The French festival took place between October 4-7 and screened 200 ecological films. The 15-minute film sheds light on the catastrophic impact of Sidon's notorious garbage dump on the area's environment. Sarji, who is also head of the Lebanese Association of Professional Divers, represented the giant trash heap as a "time bomb" threatening the Southern port city with its repetitive fires and collapses.
In the film, Julia Hammoud, a 7-year-old girl from Sidon, relates the story of the trash heap, highlighting its dangers and negative effects on the health of residents, particularly children. Sidon's children suffer from asthma more than children anywhere else in Lebanon.
The Sidon dump has posed difficulties for more than 35 years. Over the decades it has repeatedly caught fire, and in separate incidents in 2005 and 2006 it partially collapsed into the sea, sending refuse as far away as Greece.
Sarji also highlighted the dump's impact on the sea, saying "the mountain of waste filling the seabed is nothing but the son of the seaside dump."
According to Sarji, the French were astonished by the scale of the environmental catastrophe posed by the dump.
Sarji said the eight judges in the festival jury had promised to help him produce another film on oil and chemical pollution in Lebanon.
"Sidon Mountain" is Sarji's third film to win an international prize. Some 6,000 viewers in 50 countries have seen the film.
