Sigrid Kurz: First you told me that you wanted to make your video Drag Questions in Beirut, the city where you come from, but then you did the project in London. Can you tell me why you decided not to do it in Beirut? Nisrine Maktabi: I wanted to interview women in Lebanon. However, it proved to be a virtual impossibility. People are scared to show their faces, for fear that their family and loved ones and other people in public would see them. If their identity is revealed, people would realize that they are queer, or even transgender. In Lebanon any kind of nonconformity is frowned upon. Even though in the Arab world Lebanon is more open minded than other places I would say there is still a certain level of hypocrisy where by people do things and act in certain ways, but never admit to it. I do not know if I would call this hypocrisy or something else, but it is a way of hiding to survive. I also tried to find Arab women to answer my questions in London, even that proved to be difficult. I still want to make a film in Lebanon and I hope I will eventually. SK: You move between Lebanon and Europe quite often. So, does your work also deal with the different social conditions of the different cultures? NM: I was brought up in one culture. A very strict but loving environment, producing people who are dependent on one another. That means, they want us to stay attached to them. This culture was Arabic and is still Arabic, or what people call Arabic and Muslim. However, as I grew up, I was always trying to be what they wanted me to be. I realized I was trying not to be human at all, but now I am slowly realizing what I am which is not what they, my family and culture, want to see. So I saw other cultures, or rather subcultures, in other countries, which see things in a more tolerant, encouraging way. A lot of what I do is mixed with other cultures, or rather seeing what I see in my culture from the outside. But I also feel close to my culture and my heritage. I want to be able to produce my art locally, in Lebanon. SK: Recently I saw works from The Atlas Group (Walid Ra‘ad) in an exhibition in Vienna. It is a nonprofit research foundation established in 1999 in Beirut, which documents the contemporary history (in particular the civil war) of Lebanon. Do you know his work? NM: Yes, I saw his work and I like it. I think one of the most important things is to keep on re-examining the war. We tend to just ignore it. Did it really happen? It is all I really grew up with. SK: Can you describe the art scene and the situation for artists in Beirut? NM: As for the art scene here in Lebanon, I think there are many levels to it. Like now there is Artuel an art exhibition of paintings, in the most expensive hotel in Lebanon, sponsored by the ministry and others. What I can offer is my own experience, my own views. As you know, I studied psychology and only recently started doing work labeled as art. I think there are a lot of groups of artists. Each one struggles in their own way, however the government does very little to help anyone starting out. There is basically no structure for that possibility available. The Ayloul Festival is one festival that promotes young artists. It is usually funded partly by the Ministry of Culture and the European Commission. They show The Atlas Group work, and also showed my work in the past. There are several small initiatives which I find very encouraging. However my own feeling is that while I was in the London it was easier for me to experiment, try things and do work, than it is here. There is more encouragement just through the atmosphere or the spirit of the place and the structure there. Art has a huge history here, and now I feel there a new feeling re-emerging after the war. SK: Do you like to go to movies and which film(s) have you seen lately? NM: At the moment, going to movie theaters does not appeal to me. Here in Beirut they mainly get the Block Busters from Hollywood. However, there are a couple of small cinemas and occasionally, film festivals that bring films I like. Recently I saw Intimacy, a film based on Hanif Kurieshi's book of the same title. I like Iranian films from Makhmal Baf and Abbas Kiarostami. But I also like some European films. Nisrine Maktabi was born 1973 in Beirut and studied psychology in Lebanon and England.