This year's Beirut International Film Festival, due to run Oct 3-10, has been cancelled. 'The presidential elections are coming up and this is the most precarious and unstable time for us,' festival director Colette Naufal told Screendaily. 'The limbo now that means it's very difficult to plan - if the airport closes, we won't be able to bring in the prints. Sadly, the board and I took the decision that it's just too risky this year.'

Beirut's main international festival, the BIFF, celebrated its tenth year in 2006, when guests included Venice festival director Marco Mueller, although Lebanon's political troubles also saw the festival cancelled in 2004 and 2005. Naufal is now planning ahead for 2008.

Lebanon's festivals that promote local fare are continuing despite upheavals: the sixth edition of Ne a Beyrouth, a festival of Lebanese film, opened with Danielle Arbid's Directors' Fortnight title A Lost Man, and screened 66 films in its four-day run.

Lebanon's box office has dropped by around 30% over the past four years, the country's filmmakers are on a roll. Recent international hits include Cannes favourite Caramel, Nadine Labaki's debut feature that has sold to more than 30 territories, sold over 100,000 admissions in its opening week in France this summer, and dominated the Lebanese box office in August.

Philippe Aractingi's Under The Bombs received a standing ovation at its premiere at Venice. Sales agent Memento Films has sold the feature, partially shot during the war last summer, to the UK's Channel 4 and Italy's Fandango.

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