DANCE TO THE END OF LOVE, 2011, 4-channel video projection, color, sound, dimentions variable

ON PHOTOGRAPHY PEOPLE AND MODERN TIMES, 2010, 2-channel synchronized HD projection, color, stereo sound, 39 min
This work tells stories behind photographs that the artist has researched and acquired for the Arab Image Foundation in the early years of its creation in the late nineties, particularly from lebanon, Jordan and Egypt. It is a work about how photography accompanied people in modern times, but it is also about the limits of conservation, loneliness and aging.

TOMORROW EVERYTHING WILL BE ALRIGH, 2010, DVD, colour, sound, 11:44 min.
An evening online chat between two men who haven't met since the turn of the millennium lead to their reunion after 10 years of separation. An unsettling use of the technology of communication and of recording, and writing makes the film an iconic story of love, longing and loss. Is it a dream, a script, or true love everyone longs for? It is a tribute to Eric Rohmer who taught us the attention to details of our daily life, and to look for a green ray at every sunset.

L'ENLEVEMENT, 2009, HDV video, color, sound, 16 min
This work gives tribute to the mechanisms of image production, to those modest or sophisticated machines that marked popular consciousness of the twentieth century with images, films, situations, action, heroes and beauties. "L'Enlevement" is a part of an ongoing excavation in studio Shehrazade in Saida, across layers of iconography, technological inventions, trade, aesthetics, fashion and notions of work. "L'Enlevement" is the title of an episode of a famous British TV series, which was entitled THE PROTECTORS, dating back to 1972.

NATURE MORTE, 2008, Video, DV-Cam, color, sound
This is a recording of a silent moment, in which 2 men prepare themselves for a military action. While the older one leaves in the end, weapon to his shoulder, the younger one decides to stay. In this video, Zaatari works with a former member of the Lebanese Resistance, Mohammad Abu Hammane, who was featured 11 years ago in his video «All is well on the border» (1997). His reappearance in this work is a transposition in time that evokes the awakening of an older resistant, now revisiting his military gear. This video was shot in Hubbariyeh, a Lebanese village located in the Aarqub area in South Lebanon, where the fidaeyin (Palestinian resistance fighters) based themselves in Lebanon in the late 1960s. The village is only few km away from the Israeli-occupied Shebaa farms, still disputed between Lebanon, Syria and Israel.

LETTER TO SAMIR, 2008, DVCam, color, mono sound, 32min. (Shown as a wall projection)
Communication between political prisoners in different prisons in Israel happened through letters made with msamsameh writing, i.e. written with tiny letters, as tiny as sesame seeds. These letters discussed security issues especially with the prisons' central leadership in Nafha and Askalan. The letters were wrapped twice or more with plastic and sealed like a capsule, because capsules used to be swallowed by prisoners in order to be transported secretly out of prison. They were later extracted, cleaned, and delivered to a second prisoner, identified to be heading to the designated destination. The capsules used to be swallowed again before they reached their final destination. In rare instances, capsules were delivered while kissing through the fence of the visiting area.
In this video, Nabih Awada writes a letter to Samir al-Qintar right after his release by the Israelis in July 2008. In his letter, Awada tells al-Qintar all what he cannot tell him in real, and carefully wraps the letter and seals inside a plastic capsule.

HANDS AT REST, 2006, b/w video, mute, 8:47 min.

SAIDA, JUNE 6th 1982 (AIR RAID), 2003, Video, color, sound, 75sec (loop)
This short video is based on six still photographs that Zaatari took from the balcony of his parents' apartment in Saida on June 6, 1982. It was the first day of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The artist was 16 years old, and had been learning photography using his father's Kiev 35mm camera for more than a year. This is why he had his camera loaded and ready all the time to take pictures whenever an explosion or shelling occurred. In 1982, he had already photographed few insignificant air raids that were far in the south of Saida, including the bombing of the Zahrani Refinery. These were times Zaatari describes as absolute boredom as people of his age rarely went out except at school. This is how Zaatari started recording sound, taking notes, and photographs on a regular basis.
This video is a detail from a longer video documentary entitled:
"This Day" (AUJOURD'HUI, 86 minutes, 2003), where the artist examines the first documents he made during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

THIS DAY, 90min, 2003. Shot between Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, this essay superposes modes of transportation, video, and photography to comment on our society’s relationship to iconography, modernity, and questions the meaning and value of documents.

THE SINGULAR OF SEEING, 17min, 2003. A video-conference on documents in fiction films.

THE DESERT PANORAMA, 2002 Video, b/w, 9 min, loop
The Desert Panorama is based on a photographic work by scholar Jibrail Jabbur and photographer Manoug, produced in Syria in the fifties. The photographs were produced as an illustration of Jabbur›s ongoing research on the movement of Bedouins in the Syrian Badia.
Jibrail Jabbur (1900 – 1991) Born in Al Quaryatayn, a village on the edge of the Syrian Desert, he moved to Beirut to study at the
American University, where he became professor of Arabic literature and later Chairman. Jabbur has been studying the movement of the Bedouin tribes in the Syrian Desert since the thirties. Somewhere in the 50s he took his friend, the Lebanese- Armenian photographer Manoug, with him to the Syrian Desert to document aspects of life in it. The result of this collaboration was published in Arabic in 1988, and in English in 1995.

HOW I LOVE YOU, 29 mins, 2001. An exploration of sexuality among gay men in Lebanon.

TRANSITVISA, (in collaboration with M. Hojeij) 4 episodes 30 mins each, 2001. Nine artists from Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan and Palestine meet to discuss their relationship to their immediate environment.

her + him, VAN LEO, 32 mins, 2001. A nude portrait of a grandmother is a pretext to visit the Armenian/Egyptian photographer Van Leo. It is a piece that juxtaposes photography and video, black and white vs. color to comment on the transformations that took place in Egypt over 50 years of its recent history.

BAALBECK, 60mins, 2001. Project in collaboration with two filmmakers: Mohamad Soueid and Ghassan Salhab.

RED CHEWING GUM, 10 mins, 2000. A video letter inspired by issues of separation and departure as they seem relevant to Hamra street.

MAJNOUNAK, (Crazy Of You), 26 mins, video, 1997. Exploring images of masculinity through stories told by young men from the Beirut suburb.