Sadeq Al Sabbah Awarded Lebanon's National Order of the Cedar

Sabbah receives his honor.
Sabbah receives his honor.
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Sadeq Al Sabbah Awarded Lebanon's National Order of the Cedar

Sabbah receives his honor.
Sabbah receives his honor.

Lebanese producer Sadeq Al Sabbah was awarded the National Order of The Cedar on Sunday.

Held at Beirut's Grand Serail, the ceremony was attended by politicians, artists, and media personalities.

The honor was ordered by President Michel Aoun. He was represented at the ceremony by Prime Minister Najib Mikati who hosted the event.

Al Sabbah arrived early to the Serail, before the launch of the ceremony at 6:00 pm. He was calm, smiling, and seemed a modest man proud of his remarkable achievements. He welcomed the guests, thanked those who congratulated him with flowers, and embraced his grandchildren expressing his happiness on the occasion.

The ceremony was led by poet and journalist Zahi Wehbi who said honoring a successful Lebanese figure warms the heart, especially since this initiative comes while Sabbah is in the peak of his success.

The event was inaugurated with a short film listing the producer’s best cinema and TV works, followed by several keynotes.

Among the attendees were Industry Minister George Boujikian, former prime minister Tammam Salam, Lebanese and Arabic artists including Elham Shahin, Rafic Ali Ahmad, Georges Khabbaz, Claudia Marshalian, Rola Beksmati, and Adel Karam.

“His name tells so much about him. He is honest (Sadeq in Arabic means honest) in his work, honest in his productions, and honest with his country. We worked together several times, and I felt how honest he is to this country. He has made Beirut the capital of drama series. His persistence impressed us and made us proud,” Mikati said in his keynote.

“Every day, we look at you, waiting for more successful productions,” he said.

After the ceremony, responding to a question by Asharq Al-Awsat on whether he watches Lebanese drama, Mikati said: “Of course, I do and I know the names of all the stars.” Then he turned to his wife and asked her about the name of the series they plan to watch soon, she said: “The Rain Dance,” which is a Sabbah production.

Boujikian addressed a keynote in which he said: “Who among us doesn’t remember ‘Al Hayba’ series, and the millions of viewers who waited in front of their TVs for more episodes. How can Lebanon, the state, and the people not honor Sadeq Al Sabbah, who despite all the difficult circumstances, kept his studios operating in Lebanon, offering opportunities to many actors and actresses, and widening the horizons to welcome more talents from the Arab world as part of his global, Arabic vision.”

“It’s hard for me to express my thoughts and emotions, but I am so happy, not only for the medal that I respect and honor, but for accomplishing the goal I inherited from my family, grandfather, and father. I am from Nabatieh, a city of culture, light, knowledge, and scientists like Hassan Kamel Al Sabbah. I belong to a southern Arabic city, to an Arabic family proud of its roots that built a wide, regional network of fraternal and familial connections,” Sabbah said after he received the medal which he has dedicated to Lebanon.

“My goal was to be proud of my country and make my country proud of me even in the most challenging circumstances. Now, I see this goal is accomplished, and I hope to see Lebanon recovered and back to its Arabic entourage like it was and it is supposed to be. These exceptional situations will end despite the compelling circumstances,” he added.

Commenting on this tribute, Sadeq’s daughter and his partner Lama Al Sabbah, said: “I believe this honor is a reward to my father’s long successful journey. I am happy his country considered celebrating him.”

Elham Shahin described Sadeq Al Sabbah as a close friend and a person she respects and appreciates. “He’s a unique producer in this industry. He is professional and knows what he’s doing, and who to choose for every work. He’s a producer and an artist with a fine artistic sense who managed to make great works,” she told Asharq Al-Awsat.



Movie Review: From Bumper to Bumper, ‘F1’ Is Formula One Spectacle 

Brad Pitt, from left, Lewis Hamilton, and Damson Idris attend the world premiere of "F1 The Movie" on Monday, June 16, 2025, in Times Square in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
Brad Pitt, from left, Lewis Hamilton, and Damson Idris attend the world premiere of "F1 The Movie" on Monday, June 16, 2025, in Times Square in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
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Movie Review: From Bumper to Bumper, ‘F1’ Is Formula One Spectacle 

Brad Pitt, from left, Lewis Hamilton, and Damson Idris attend the world premiere of "F1 The Movie" on Monday, June 16, 2025, in Times Square in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
Brad Pitt, from left, Lewis Hamilton, and Damson Idris attend the world premiere of "F1 The Movie" on Monday, June 16, 2025, in Times Square in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

The wide-screen spectacle of Formula One gets a gleaming, rip-roaring workout in Joseph Kosinski’s “F1,” a fine-tuned machine of a movie that, in its most riveting racing scenes, approaches a kind of high-speed splendor.

Kosinski, who last endeavored to put moviegoers in the seat of a fighter jet in “Top Gun: Maverick,” has moved to the open cockpits of Formula One with much the same affection, if not outright need, for speed. A lot of the same team is back. Jerry Bruckheimer produces. Ehren Kruger, a co-writer on “Maverick,” takes sole credit here. Hans Zimmer, a co-composer previously, supplies the thumping score.

And, again, our central figure is an older, high-flying cowboy plucked down in an ultramodern, gas-guzzling conveyance to teach a younger generation about old-school ingenuity and, maybe, the enduring appeal of denim.

But whereas Tom Cruise is a particularly forward-moving action star, Brad Pitt, who stars as the driving-addicted Sonny Hayes in “F1,” has always been a more arrestingly poised presence. Think of the way he so calmly and half-interestedly faces off with Bruce Lee in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood.” In the opening scene of “F1,” he’s sleeping in a van with headphones on when someone rouses him. He splashes some water on his face and walks a few steps over to the Daytona oval, where he quickly enters his team’s car, in the midst of a 24-hour race. Pitt goes from zero to 180 mph in a minute.

Sonny, a long-ago phenom who crashed out of Formula One decades earlier and has since been racing any vehicle, even a taxi, he can get behind the wheel of, is approached by an old friend, Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) about joining his flagging F1 team, APX. Sonny turns him down at first but, of course, he joins and “F1” is off to the races.

The title sequence, exquisitely timed to the syncopated rhythms of Zimmer’s score, is a blistering introduction. The hotshot rookie driver Noah Pearce (Damson Idris) is just running a practice lap, but Kosinski, his camera adeptly moving in and out of the cockpit, uses the moment to plunge us into the high-tech world of Formula One, where every inch of the car is connected to digital sensors monitored by a watchful team. Here, that includes technical director Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon) and Kaspar Molinski (Kim Bodnia), the team’s chief.

Verisimilitude is of obvious importance to the filmmakers, who bathe this very Formula One-authorized film in all the sleek operations and globe-trotting spectacle of the sport. That Apple, which produced the film, would even go for such a high-priced summer movie about Formula One is a testament to the upswing in popularity of a sport once quite niche in America, and of the halo effects of both the Netflix series “Formula 1: Drive to Survive” and the seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, an executive producer on “F1.”

Whether “F1” pleases diehards, I’ll leave to more ardent followers of the circuit. But what I can say definitively is that Claudio Miranda knows how to shoot it. The cinematographer, who has shot all of Kosinski’s films as well as wonders like Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi,” brings Formula One to vivid, visceral life. When “F1” heads to the big races, Miranda is always simultaneously capturing the zooming cars from the asphalt while backgrounding it with the sweeping spectacle of a course like the UK’s fabled Silverstone Circuit.

OK, you might be thinking, so the racing is good; is there a story? There’s what I’d call enough of one, though you might have to go to the photo finish to verify that. When Sonny shows up, and rapidly turns one practice vehicle into toast, it’s clear that he’s going to be an agent of chaos at APX, a low-ranking team that’s in heavy debt and struggling to find a car that performs.

This gives Pitt a fine opportunity to flash his charisma, playing Sonny as an obsessive who refuses any trophy and has no real interest in money, either. The flashier, media-ready Noah watches Sonny's arrival with skepticism, and the two begin more as rivals than teammates. Idris is up to the mano-a-mano challenge, but he’s limited by a role ultimately revolving around and reducing to a young Black man learning a lesson in work ethic.

A relationship does develop, but “F1” struggles to get its characters out of the starting blocks, keeping them closer to the cliches they start out as. The actor who, more than anyone, keeps the momentum going is Condon, playing an aerodynamics specialist whose connection with Pitt’s Sonny is immediate. Just as she did in between another pair of headstrong men in “The Banshees of Inisherin,” Condon is a rush of naturalism.

If there’s something preventing “F1” from hitting full speed, it’s its insistence on having its characters constantly voice Sonny’s motivations. The same holds true on the race course, where broadcast commentary narrates virtually every moment of the drama. That may be a necessity for a sport where the crucial strategies of hot tires and pit-stop timing aren't quite household concepts. But the best car race movies — from “Grand Prix” to “Senna” to “Ferrari” — know when to rely on nothing but the roar of an engine.

“F1” steers predictably to the finish line, cribbing here and there from sports dramas before it. (Tobias Menzies plays a board member with uncertain corporate goals.) When “F1” does, finally, quiet down, for one blissful moment, the movie, almost literally, soars. It's not quite enough to forget all the high-octane macho dramatics before it, but it's enough to glimpse another road “F1” might have taken.