My father is Mahmoud Kahil a great cartoonist whom I loved so dearly til the moment he left me…
My father died on feb 11th 2003… He was not supposed to die that young, at 66, this was not in my plan !
In a quick note : my dad was born in 1936, married in 1969, had me and my brother in 1974 and 1975.
In 1978 he left to the UK to work as Lebanon was drowning in a dirty civil war that lasted til 1989 …
As you know : we come from a very peaceful region!
He was a great cartoonist , I always loved his work , but I have lived most of my life away from him until I moved to the UK in 1998 to be close to him.
I can say I spent the best 5 years of my life growing to love him more through getting to know the man, the dad and the artist . When he died I was left with many questions unanswered, as he was a passionate artist I thought maybe by getting to know him through his work might help me put him to rest and let me move on with the thought he is watching over me.
As film is the language I use , and having an amazing partner who himself loved my dad, and is a cinematographer ,we decided to start filming my journey getting to see how my dad progressed in his work and life in the years we did not see much of him.
To keep the story short we filmed for months and then realised the full film is not possible at that time, we wanted to wait and see how the story can evolve .
10 years later, in may 2013 we decide as ‘Kahil’ family to get on scanning all his work which was proved to be a task beyond belief . We had coloured and B&W cartoons (done in the 80’s til his death) .
We tried to dig more in the past and found many works from his lebanon days in the 60’s.
What we found is fascinating and what is next are diaries of the trip me and my Eric been doing slowly. Those small films are considered as diaries but as well can be considered as work in progress , trailers , to a longer feature documentary looking at the life of Mahmoud Kahil… my dad .
I hope you like them :
Diary #1:
All of Kahil’s work is getting scanned and categorized 10 years after his death , here is a snippet of what his family is up to , to keep the legacy going …
FILMED ON IPHONE 4G / just to keep the record!
محمود كحيل رسام صحفي و كاريكاتير لبناني. ولد في مدينة طرابلس، لبنان سنة 1936
و توفي في مدينة لندن في 11 شباط/ فبراير2003
Diary #2:
february 2003 : Mahmoud Kahil dies in London
family of Kahil holds condolences in London – UK and Beirut – Lebanon .
I start searching for my father’s early work , archive and where he started and what still remains in Lebanon from his early drawings that can shed the light on his style . here is a snippet of 2003 and what i went through to find answers.
more diaries still to follow…
TECH SPEC: shot in 2003 , BY SONY DVCAM PD 150 UPRES to APPLE PRO RES , NO Grade 🙂 !!! it is vintage now!
Music used made by the creative amazing friend and musician Jamie Perera who offered this track for this short diary! thank you jamie . Check Jamie’s work out on: http://www.jamieperera.com/
Diary #3:
Part 3 of my search into the old work of my late father, the cartoonist Mahmoud Kahil.
In this diary I meet the late Melhem Karam who was the head of the press association in Lebanon in 2003 and he gives me access to the old monday morning archives where my dad’s work featured! Check Uncle Sam and Late President Hafez Assad Cartoon
Diary #4:
Part 4 of my diaries is just to show the amount of work that was involved in scanning all of my father’s artwork , for 6 heavy month daily for 8hours a day
scanning, tagging and writing notes and data on his style of work and how he lived his life as an artist. We , as his children realised what we are doing is just magical and so much worth all the effort and energy we are putting in…