Check the films - Marché du Film

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SCREENING INFO
MONDAY, May 16, 2016
4 PM to 6 PM
Palais K - J. L. Bory
For market badge holders only.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, EMAIL [email protected]
4 SEASONS, 2 BROTHERS
AND A BORDER
(Syria/UAE/USA)
Synopsis
Director’s Statement
In 1967, the border was redrawn
in our village, cutting us away
from the rest of Syria. For four
years my father didn’t know if his
brother was still alive. Over four
seasons, I filmed my parents as
they grew old, I followed them
working in the fields and on the
mountain; I followed them into
their future plans and I followed
them far into the past.
In 1967, my only uncle, Fa’iz had vanished in the fog
of war, only to show up four years later as a rumour in
the port of Tartus. Uncle Fa’iz sent his eldest daughter
across the border to marry my brother, knowing
that she can never turn back and now I, young and
curious wander the village aimlessly, with nothing
but time. All the time in the world to wait patiently
by my father’s side. At times I film and at times I listen
to my father telling me that it’s a waste of time. I
listen to my father and I don’t argue, I smile back the
same loving smile that I inherited from him. I watch
him and I watch my mother. I watch my brother and
his Syrian bride, I watch the village and I watch the
border that runs through it, I watch my people as they
murder each other in the loudest and bloodiest ways
possible. I watch and I turn my camera on, then I turn
my camera off. Collecting bit by bit, piece by piece
the silent story of my generation, of my country, of my
village, my family, my father and finally, myself.
Filming as a fly on the wall, I find
myself tracing my own identity.
I used to live in Damascus until
the protests began and my father
begged that I return. He could
not bear the thought of losing
another family member to the
world across the tall electric
fence that crosses our village to
the east.
Watching my parents, I find my
own self and realise that the story
I’m telling isn’t only mine, it’s the
story of millions throughout the
Arab world.
Production Contact
Company
Email
Tel
Website
RailRoad Films
[email protected]
+16233494323
www.railroadfilms.net
Technical Information
Partners Attached
Enjaaz, Dubai Film Market (UAE)
Shooting Location
Occupied Golan Heights (Syria)
Shooting Format
HD + archive footage scanned in HD
Screening Format
DCP
Genre
Creative Documentary
Running Time
75 mins
LanguageArabic
Director
Maisa Safadi
Maisa Safadi is the Village Magistrates
Photographer and Videographer of the small
Druze community of Majdal Shams in the
occupied Golan Heights, Syria. After studying
Plastic Arts at the Fateh Al Mouddarres Centre
in the village, Safadi relocated to Damascus,
where she studied videography and filmmaking
at the Adham Ismail Centre. In 2011, when the
protests began, she returned to her village, where
she has been filming her parents and community
and also digging into its archives to find footage
documenting the history of the village, set high
on a mountain in south-west Syria and that has
survived several winters, wars and has been home
to generations of farmers.
Producer
Solomon Goodman
Solomon Goodman is a film producer, journalist
and political activist. Goodman began making
films after leaving the United States during the
Bush administration years and was encouraged to
stay in the Middle East until President Obama was
elected. Goodman has made films, both narrative
and documentary and has established RailRoad
Films, a New York-based production company
specialising in production in the Middle East and
in Africa.
Brooks, Meadows
and Lovely Faces
(egypt)
Synopsis
Director’s Statement
A family of cooks, who
cater peasant weddings and
festivities struggle to retain their
independence and maintain their
dignity. Refaat and Galal, the
sons of Yehia the cook, eventually
manage to muster up the courage
and, braving social constraints,
express their feelings to the
women they love.
I started writing Brooks, Meadows and Lovely Faces
in 1996 after meeting cooks in the countryside, while
filming my documentary ON BOYS, GIRLS AND THE
VEIL. I was immediately attracted to the freewheeling
lifestyle of these people, who were proud of their art
and who were alive with sensuality and joy. The first
drafts of the script, I found, were naively political and
I found myself shelving the project and eventually
returning to it until I hit what I think is the right tone.
You don’t need politics to make a political film.
Love, pleasure, beauty and food are serious enough.
Production Contact
Company
El sobkey Films for Cinema Productions
[email protected]
Tel
+201226626262
Technical Information
Partners Attached
El sobkey Film Production
Shooting Location
Egypt
Shooting Format
1:1.85
Screening Format
DCP
Genre
Dramatic Comedy
Running Time
110 mins
LanguageArabic
Director
Yousry Nasrallah
Yousry Nasrallah is an Egyptian filmmaker. After
graduating in economics and political science
from Cairo University he worked as a film critic
and as an assistant director to Youssef Chahine,
whose company Misr International would go
on to produce Nasrallah’s films. Following his
directorial debut in SUMMER THEFTS (1988)
he has directed eight films that have explored
themes as broad ranging as left-leaning beliefs,
Islamic fundamentalism and migration. His
filmography includes: THE AQUARIUM (2008),
SCHEHERAZADE TELL ME A STORY (2009),
18 DAYS (2011) and AFTER THE BATTLE (2012),
which competed for the Palme d’Or at the
Festival de Cannes.
Producer
AhmEd Elsobkey
With more than 85 films to his credit, Ahmed
Elsobkey is one of the most prolific producers in
the Middle East. He started his career in 1989
producing films for Mohamed Khan, Ali Badrakhan
and some of the biggest stars of Egyptian cinema
such as Ahmed Zaki and Noor El Sherif. His
policy of alternating hugely commercial films
with more ambitious productions has secured
the company’s longevity and economic stability.
Among his most notable productions: Mohamed
Khan’s MR KARATE, Aly Badrakhan’s AL RAGHBA
(“The Desire”, based on “A Streetcar named Desire”),
Sameh Abdelaziz’s EL FARAH (“The Wedding”) and
CABARET, Hady El Bagoury’s WAHED SAHEEH
(“A Whole One”) and Kareem Elsobkey’s MEN
DAHR RAGEL (“Born to a Man”).
Fish Killed Twice
(Egypt/France/UAE)
Synopsis
Director’s Statement
Fish Killed Twice follows the
exceptional fates of two young
men on death row, caught in the
changing political landscape of a
post-Mubarak Egypt.
In recent years, death sentences have been dispensed
liberally by Egyptian courts; so, I have asked myself
why some individuals are spared whilst others not. To
date, no one knows what happened on that dreadful
day in the Port Said stadium; no one knows who
the real perpetrators were. Thousands attacked the
terraces, so how did the police and the justice system
identify the alleged murderers in just two weeks?
How did a judge sentence 21 of them to death in less
than a year?
With this film, I want to understand this horrific
situation. Fish Killed Twice is the story of two men,
who were sentenced to death under the Morsi
government, released during the military transition
and then sentenced to death once again. I followed
their lives for more than three years and through the
film, we witness how this situation has affected them.
Production Contact
Company
Email
Tel
Website
hautlesmains productions
[email protected]
+33668175187
www.hautlesmainsproductions.fr
Technical Information
Partners Attached
Al Batrik Productions (Egypt),
NHK (Japan),
Enjaaz – Dubai Film Market (UAE),
Red Star Productions (Egypt),
Screen Institute Beirut (Lebanon),
Dox Box Residency (Germany)
Shooting Location
Port Said (Egypt)
Shooting Format
HD
Screening Format
DCP
Genre
Documentary
Running Time
70 mins
LanguageArabic
Director
Fawzi Saleh
Fawzi Saleh (born 1981, Egypt) is a screenwriter,
filmmaker and human-rights activist. He holds
a degree in screenwriting from the Cairo Film
Institute and has contributed to numerous
documentary films as a researcher and co-writer.
In 2006, he directed the experimental short
MOCHA, which drew attention to
his talent. A
turning point in his career came in 2008, when
he worked as an assistant director for Rashid
Masharawi, who encouraged Fawzi to start
shooting his first feature documentary, LIVING
SKIN, which he completed in 2010.
Producer
Karim Aitouna
Moroccan producer Karim Aitouna is a graduate
in law, film studies and cultural management.
He runs hautlesmains productions with
Thomas Micoulet. The company’s first feature
documentaries include Anna Roussillon’s awardwinning JE SUIS LE PEUPLE (2014), which was
selected in the ACID Programme at the Festival de
Cannes and David Yon’s LA NUIT ET L’ENFANT
(2015), which screened in the Forum section of
the Berlinale. Aitouna is member of EAVE and
EURODOC. In 2013, he won the Robert Bosch
Stiftung co-production prize (Germany) for his
documentary project A Place Under The Sun
and he was selected as Emerging Producer at the
Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival.
MUNICH:
A PALESTINIAN STORY
(PALESTINE/UAE)
Synopsis
Director’s Statement
Afif Hamid, one of the Palestinian
Fidayeen group members, who
was involved in and killed during
the hostage taking at the 1972
Munich Olympics, had been a
friend of mine since I was sixyears-old. We were from the Ein El
Helweh refugee camp in Lebanon.
I never thought that Afif, who was
obsessed with the lifestyle of the
1960s and was uninterested in
politics, would join the Fidayeen
and die in an international incident
that shocked the world. Years
later, I met Jamal, one of the two
surviving members of the Fidayeen.
I therefore, felt a personal
connection to the Munich chapter.
I am 61-years-old and I spent the first 28 years of my
life in the Ein El Helweh refugee camp in Lebanon,
where I was born. I have lived through all the early
years of the Palestinian experience after the Nakba,
the beginning of a human tragedy, the beginning
of the Palestinian dream and its failures. I have
witnessed many bitter stories and lost many of my
beloved friends and relatives. My film is not merely
about a violent event or a political story as much as
it is a personal film. One of the Fidayeen killed in
Munich, Afif Hamid was a childhood friend of mine.
This friendship will be the main part of this film.
Later on in my life, I met Jamal one of the only two
survivors of the Fidayeen group. Jamal was finally
convinced to share his story in front of the camera
especially as he had also watched all the films made
by non-Arab filmmakers. My film will be the first
ever film about Munich that will be made through
the eyes of Jamal and Muhammad the only men from
the Fidayeen group who survived. My film will reveal
layers of memories, despair, losses, death and dreams.
The film commences in the Ein El
Halweh and Shatilla camps, where
most of the group’s members were
from and will continue through
the countries that were the training
ground for this operation.
Eight films have been made on the
Munich chapter, but none of them
are Palestinian or Arab. I want to
present the Palestinian version of
this story, which is not necessarily
uncritical of the operation and its
sequences.
The term “terrorism” will be
discussed with all of the concerned
parties. It will be an attempt
to present different views –
irrespective of the support for or
condemnation of the events in
Munich in 1972.
Production Contact
Company
Nasri Hajjaj
[email protected]
Tel
+436606091221
Technical Information
Partners Attached
Palestine T.V. (Palestine), Arab Fund
for Art and Culture – AFAC (Lebanon)
Enjaaz – Dubai Film Market (UAE)
Shooting Locations Lebanon, Egypt, Libya, Germany,
Italy & Israel
Shooting Format
DCP
Screening Format
DCP
Genre
Documentary
Running Time
75 mins
LanguageArabic/English
Director/PRODUCER
Nasri Hajjaj
Nasri Hajjaj was born in the Ein El Helweh
Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon. Following
a 20-year career as a freelance journalist, he
began working in the film industry initially as
a writer, before directing films. He has written
and directed six films including THE SHADOW
OF ABSENCE (2007), AS THE POET SAID (2009)
and THE PURPLE FIELD (2015). His films have
won awards and have been selected at numerous
international film festivals.
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