Goodbye to Edgardo Bechara El Khoury
CLACSO mourns the passing of our dear colleague and friend Edgardo Bechara El Khoury and extends its deepest condolences to his family and loved ones. The unexpected end of his life has left us deeply shaken and filled with profound sadness.
Born in Buenos Aires, of Lebanese descent through his paternal grandfather, his identification with the Arab world made his spirit of strength, passion, and perseverance a creed. His mission was to build bridges, create networks between the regions of the Global South, and work for a world in which people can live together in harmony. His firm conviction that “the future is South-South” led him to study in our Specialization in Epistemologies of the South.
Edgardo graduated from the Political Science program at the University of Buenos Aires, specializing in International Relations with a focus on the politics and culture of the Arab world. He was the Executive Director of Cine Fértil and of the prestigious LatinArab International Festival, which he founded.
From its beginnings, the festival toured Buenos Aires cultural centers, showcasing Arab films. A trip to Spain and an agreement with the Casa Árabe in Madrid spurred the initiative to bring Arab films subtitled in Spanish to audiences. Later, an unexpected trip to Abu Dhabi took place. While at BAFICI (Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival), a programmer learned about the project and invited the organization he led to participate. He traveled through Morocco, Tunisia, and Lebanon, fostering co-production agreements with Argentina. He thus created the first Arab Film Festival in Argentina and Latin America, encouraging young filmmakers to tell stories from both countries and regions.
In 2018, Cine Fértil received recognition for its career at the 15th annual awards ceremony.a UNESCO-Sharjah Prize for Arab Culture Edition | Paris. Award recipients: The Argentine non-governmental civil association Cine Fértil, representing the Promotion of Cultural Diversity, delivered a passionate speech on the importance of respecting cultural diversity. On that occasion, UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said of Cine Fértil: “It has become a benchmark for creating coherent and long-term cultural relations between South America and the Arab region.”
LatinArab has managed to position itself during 2018 and 2019 at the Cannes Film Festival as one of the 100 most relevant actors in the Arab film industry according to Arab Cinema Magazine.
In 2020, we had the opportunity to sponsor the 9th edition of the LatinArab Festival on our CLACSO TV page, and to share various discussions about the work of women filmmakers from Lebanon, Colombia, and Argentina; about Latin-Arab artistic mobility: South-South experiences and mappings 2020-2030; and about the richness of intercultural dialogues. Edgardo participated in designing the Film + Feminism Festival “Towards a New Erotic Poetics of Relationships and Futures” at the 5th Congress of Postcolonial Studies and the 7th Postcolonial Feminism Conference, organized by the CLACSO South-South Program in conjunction with NuSUR (IDAES/UNSAM).
His humanism and solidarity with the Palestinian people was expressed through his collaboration with Canaan Publishing House, as a member of the Academic Committee of the Edward W. Said Chairs in Latin America, and as a member of the Special Working Group on Palestine and Latin America.
“Latin American Cultural Resistance for Palestine” was the last virtual public event of 2020 in which Edgardo participated. Organized jointly by Cine Fértil, the Al Zeytun Magazine Special Group, and the CLACSO South-South Program, we attended the launch of the music video. Palestinian Cumbia by the San Bomba Popular Orchestra, whose production was made possible through solidarity with Cine Fértil. “Palestinian Cumbia represents a breath of hope that we lovingly and compassionately offer to all the Palestinian people. We are proud to declare loudly that ‘The voices of the people will not be silenced / Not with laws, not with bullets / With the force of a volcano you exist / And we shout to you loud and clear: Palestine Resists!’”
“Today, the most powerful message we can give,” he said, “is the promotion and protection of the cultural expressions that constitute us as communities and peoples on the planet.” So be it.
Farewell.
On the occasion of the 9th Latin Arab Film Festival, in October 2020 Edgardo visited the CLACSO headquarters, opened the conversation on the "Relevance of intercultural dialogue", also the one on "Latin-Arab artistic mobilities: South-South experiences and mappings 2020-2030" and participated in InfoCLACSO.
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