The Lebanese Movie Awards known as The LMAs, is an award ceremony recognizing the best Lebanese & International cinematic achievements in the film making industry. The LMAs honors these films both in their artistic and technical aspects with categories including Best Lebanese Motion Picture, Best Directing, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, among others. The award was first presented in 2014, at Vox Cinemas, before finally moving in 2018 to The Casino Du Liban, a lush and luxurious venue hosting the ceremony so far. The LMAs is the first and only award ceremony for film in Lebanon. The 5th edition of the LMAs was held on the 17th of April at The Casino Du Liban, with 7 films competing in major categories, The Insult by Ziad Doueiri came out as the big winner with 4 awards including Best Picture. Mahbass took home two awards for Best Soundtrack and Best Costume Design and Tramontane picked up the award for Best Director.
Nomination
The nominees were announced Live on Monday January 15, 2018, on MTV Lebanon, by the president and founder Emilio Eid. The nominees included a total of 7 films, competing for 10 categories among which Best Picture, Best Lebanese Director, Best Ensemble Cast and more. This year a new category was added to honor the achievement of costume designers under the title of Best Wardrobe. For the sixth edition new categories will be added including Best Independent Short & Best Documentary Feature
Jury Members
The jury members for the fifth edition are as follows, Emile Chahine, Sam Lahoud, Anne Dominique Toussaint, Darine Hamze, Phillipe Aractangi, Hassan Mrad, Fadi Abi Samra, Nibal Arakji, Mario Jr. Haddad, Pierre Rabbat, Zeina Daccache and Ghida Majzoub Jury Members are carefully selected each year, as the LMA cares to keep a track record of prestigious and esteemed figures voting for the nominated films. Each jury member would receive his voting ballot and will have a period of time to cast his votes and return his ballot. All jury members votes are kept confidential at all times. Here's a few of the jury we've had across the years: Raya Abirached, Elias Doummar, Marie-There Maalouf, Amin Dora, Jassmina Najjar, Mahmoud Hojeij, Georges Khabbaz, Wissam Breidy as well as many others.
Venues
For the first two years, the awards were presented at Vox Cinema Lebanese, before eventually moving to the prestigious downtown location, at Beirut Souks Cinemacity, which hosted the award ceremony for the third and fourth edition. The awards moved to the Casino Du Liban, in Jounieh which currently hosts the awards for future editions.
Categories
Current categories
Cinematic Achievement Award
The cinematic achievement award is awarded to a special recipient who has worked and pushed the boundaries of the Lebanese film industry and who has made a notable contribution to its international recognition. The first recipient was Georges Khabbaz, who has worked on films such as Ghadi, Void and Under The Bombs. The recipient name would only be announced a few days before the ceremony.
Trivia
At the 5th edition of The Lebanese Movie Awards, a joint win was in place for Best Wardrobe for the film The Insult & Mahbas awarding both Lara Mae Khamis & Beatrice Harb
