2022 Winners & Shortlists

Write a short summary of what happens in the film

Of the five million Lebanese people in the country, all of them consider themselves to be experts at something. Cooking, singing, running, photographing, writing, diving, climbing, nail-polishing, cleaning, piloting. Thousands of experts in hundreds of different subjects. When everyone was offering their own input on how to best protect yourself from Covid, instead of telling people to stop giving out medical advice or refuting their suggestions, MTV encouraged people to be the experts they were, in all fields. Instead of calling “bullsh@t” on every conversation – a strategy that sometimes backfires and puts people off – MTV agreed that all of them were experts. Yes. You and me, we can all be experts. But leave medicine and medical advice to the real doctors.

Cultural / Context information for the jury

People in Lebanon were not signing up for vaccinations despite a massive push from the government. They relied mostly on the genius creations of friends and family, such as garlic diets and sticking items up their nose to block the airflow of the coronavirus. A famous singer Ragheb Alama even went on TV claiming the vaccine is useless and people should rely on alternative methods to protect themselves. To understand matters, MTV went ahead and began studying statements and conversations from all types of people talking nonsense about so-called homemade Covid treatments. However, the conversations in themselves were not the problem. The real problem was that people are simply keen on trusting the ones who are closest to them, whether they’re family or friends.