Death of a Virgin, and the sin of not Living// Aa Amal Tiji

This is something I went through. When I was 15, I was taken to a prostitute to lose my virginity,
and it took me a long time to comprehend what had happened. The severity of being thrown into
a most unfathomable situation and told to… perform; this is an allusion to the basis of existence,
in my opinion. Therefore, when I finally did grasp what had occurred, I strongly felt the need to
make a film about it. For the longest time I felt alone in this, alone in my struggle to deal with my
odd thoughts, and I tried to suppress them because they deviated from the norm and the general
human perception.
The intense urge to make this film stems from a devout belief that so many others go through
what I went through, not in the literal terms of going to a prostitute and what that situates, but in
the underlying meaning of having to deal with life and not knowing how to.
This project focuses on the struggles and challenges faced by a majority of the Lebanese
people; wherein which their opinions, concerns, and ambitions are heard under the guise of a
semi-fictional story revolving around four male adolescents who are on their way to visit a
prostitute for the first time. Moreover, many of the different forms of abuse and inequality that
occur in Lebanon surface during this passage, which accumulates in one of the most
unrecognized forms of abuse of all: the sexual abuse that occurs when teenage boys are
pressured into going to a prostitute. It is an unspoken requirement for male adolescents in
Lebanon to seek the services of a prostitute as part of their “coming-of-age” and transition into
manhood. However, this remains unacknowledged, even in the form of banter.
This is a film that has been through so much. I worked with the actors for three years rehearsing
constantly for them to be able to pull off the technical difficulty the film required (the film is
composed of a series of intricate long takes), all the while trying to secure funding, which never
came through. Then after meeting Reine Semaan and Christelle Younes (the executive
producers of the film), a crew of the best people in the industry gathered together solely for their
love for the script and their belief in the four main actors.
Lebanon needs a film like this, that’s what I kept telling myself when I’d lose hope that this film
would ever come to be. We need a film that speaks about our respective struggles, struggles that
might resonate with people from all over. We don’t know the civil war, the war we were born into
and are still fighting till today is that of identity, we fight to exist.
I do not venture to believe that I will change society with my words, or that I have the ability to
alter any of the suppressions we face. I only wish to share my perceptions, and I hope that these
contemplations can help others feel less alone.