ELIE EL CHOUFANY
writer | editor 

Growing up in Beirut, Lebanon just as the civil war was coming to an end placed me in a peculiar situation as a child, in which I was developing an identity in a country that had just lost its own. 

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During that crucial time in my life, there was only survival, and fear. 

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Starved for stories and adventure, for a life beyond fear and hiding, my four-year-old self would sneak out of the house when everyone was fast asleep, and I would slip into the VHS store that my parents owned, where I had access to a world lead by courage.

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Those illicit midnight screenings were so spellbinding that even the loudest blast booming from outside wasn't enough to deter me.  

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I didn't know it at the time, but FILM and TV changed my life forever.