Arabic version by Rima Youssef
Translated and edited by Lynn Waked

NNA - He is the genius who has always known how to make the Lebanese (young, adults and elderly) wish they could go back in time to answer the question: "What about tomorrow?"

Scores of tomorrows have gone, and no one ever knew about their tomorrow!

They knew it was impossible, so they did it.

17 years later, Beirut's Cinema City gathered Lebanese politicians and artists and media figures to see the first show of Ziad el-Rahbani's "What about tomorrow?" legendary play in the movies.

Only a genius can do things his own way, and that was what el-Rahbani did.

Ziad was not very supportive of the thought of filming his own plays, but fate led him to agree on recording "What about tomorrow - Bel nesbe la boukra shou?" and "Film Amerke Taweel" so as to see his own performance in the play.

When there was no director to monitor the play and take notes, Fayrouz's son, Ziad el-Rahbani, taped the play more than 35 years ago to help actors enhance their performance.

Now let's delve into the details.
The first screening of the play was EXHILIARATING.
Now let's delve into more details.
The first screening of the play was EXCITING.

What we memorized and repeated for years is finally being screened.

The play's words, sentences, jokes, and predictions are being widely screened.
And even though with a poor video quality, people are rushing to see the play to share laughter with their friends and family and with the people they don't know in the movie theatre.

"3a hadiiir l boooosta", you sang that, haven't you? We all have!

"Zakaria", (Ziad el-Rahbani) swinging and dancing lightly at the rhythm of the song, giving "Thourayya" (his wife in the play) jealousy looks without saying anything, along with countless scenes, made us fall for the play's audio we grew up to.

Can you imagine us not falling all over again for the video?

"Thourayya" was beautiful, classy and elegant in her performance and character... Sadly she couldn't make it to the movies for travel reasons.

"Monsieur Antoine" (Boutros Farah), "Najib" (Rafik Najem), "Osama" (Fayek Homsi), "Rida" (Sami Hawwat), "Khawaja Adnan" (Ghazaros Altonian)... took us years back to our past future...

"Ramez" (Joseph Saker) was mostly missed... He was of course in the play and will always be in our hearts...

Unforgettable role; he walked in with his genuine mountain-look and unique smile at the beat of his famous songs which were being sang out loud by the entire audience in all four theatres!!

Happiness, sorrow, nostalgia, laughter, tears... I doubt that in the history of Lebanese movies we would ever feel at once!

The idea of this movie debuted 17 years ago, ever since the production company knew about the presence of video footages of the play.

It took a lot of time to convince Ziad el-Rahbani to show the play in movie theatres.

After his approval, footage was sent to L.A. to prepare and fix the audio, and then brought back to Beirut for editing.

The production Company Program Manager said that the movie will be played in all Lebanese theatres, expecting it to be a hit!

So far, more than 100000 tickets were sold!

Congratulations to the legendary genius that has been, still is, and will always be the book of reference for the Lebanese…

====================L.W.