| Waves '98 | |
| Director: | Ely Dagher |
| Producer: | Ely Dagher |
| Music: | Matthew Wilcock |
| Animator: | Ely Dagher Laure Escafadals Chadi Aoun |
| Runtime: | 15 minutes |
| Country: | Lebanon Qatar |
| Language: | Arabic |
Waves '98 is a 2015 animated, live-action short film written and directed by Lebanese artist and filmmaker Ely Dagher. It was awarded the Short Film Palme d'Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.[1]
Omar is a high-school student living in the northern suburbs of Beirut in the late 1990s.[2] Disillusioned with his life in the suburbs of segregated Beirut, Omar's discovery lures him into the depths of the city. Immersed into a world that is so close yet so isolated from his reality that he eventually finds himself struggling to keep his attachments, his sense of home.[3] The film is a meditation on Dagher's relationship to Beirut, his hometown, since he has left it for Brussels.[4]
Waves '98 is the first Lebanese film in the official competition at the Cannes Film Festival since Maroun Baghdadi won the Jury Prize for Out of Life in 1991.[5] The film was shortlisted as one of 8 from a list of 4550 short film submissions. The film was awarded the Short Film Palme d'Or by Abderrahmane Sissako in a ceremony on May 24, 2015.[6]