Casa Árabe supports Cinema in Motion
Casa Arabe supports Cinema in Motion, a programme at San Sebastian International Film Festival, that this year will screen four projects from Iraq, Jordan and Morocco.
September 06, 2010
Cinema in Motion is a space at San Sebastian International Film Festival open to feature films at the end of their filming or at the post-production stage, made by filmmakers from the Maghreb, Portuguese-speaking African countries and developing Arab countries: Angola, Algeria, Cape Verde, Egypt, Guinea, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Mozambique, Palestine, Santo Tomé y Príncipe, Syria and Tunisia.
Three of the selected directors have previously participated in this programme, thus certifying the interest of the projects presented. Both the Jordanian Mahmoud al Massad and the Moroccan Leïla Kilani participated in the third edition of Cinema in Motion with their respective projects, Recycle and Nos lieux interdits, with the Jordan winning the event. Mohamed Al-Daradji, co-director of House For Sale, being presented in this edition, was able to complete his Son of Babylon based on the footage of In The Sands of Babylon, winner of Cinema in Motion 5. With this work, Al-Daradji participated at Sundance Festival (World Cinema Dramatic Competition), in addition to landing the Amnesty International Film Prize and the Peace Film Award at the Panorama Section of the Berlinale.
Films completed with the aid received at San Sebastian Festival have participated in the most prestigious festivals in the international arena. Recycle (Mahmoud al Massad, 2007) was screened in the official competitions of international festivals including San Francisco, Buenos Aires, Guadalajara, Fribourg, Rotterdam, Sundance and Dubai, winning the Best Photography Award in the World Documentary category at Sundance. Nos lieux interdits (Leïla Kilani, 2008) participated in the Tangiers, Nantes and Burkina Faso Festivals and in Milan’s African, Asian and Latin American Film Festival, among others.
Films
Chaplin Of The Mountains
Irak
Diretor Jano Rosebiani
Cast: Estelle Bajou, Zack Gold, Bennett Viso, Kurdo Galali, Taies Farzan
A young French-Kurdish woman meets two NYU film students, guided by a Kurdish TV celebrity as they screen Charlie Chaplin films in remote villages, and a Kurdish journalist fighting for women's rights, ultimately bringing them together on a quest to find her mother's village, destroyed during the Anfal Genocide.
House For Sale
Irak – United Kingdom
Director: Atia Al-Daradji y Mohamed Al-Daradji
Cast: Saif Al-Dhabi, Mohamed Al-Dhabi, Husham Al-Dhabi
In a 6x6 sqm room we meet 32 football crazed children with their eyes glued to the TV. Half of them cheer Real Madrid, the other half Barcelona. They live, sleep, eat and study in the same room of an orphanage set in the most dangerous district of Al Sadr City, Baghdad. School and fights between the Americans and Militias, coupled with the threat that they will loose their home, is all just part of what it means to be an orphan in Iraq.
Sur la planche
Morocco - France
Director: Leïla Kilani
Cast: Soufia Issami, Mouna Bahmad, Nouzha Akel, Rafika Bouazza
In Tangier, Badia and Imane, two young Moroccan girls of around twenty, walk in line amongst an army of workers who fill up the city with their coming and going back and forth. They both work in a shrimp-packaging factory, a difficult and humiliating job, where the strong odor of shrimp seeps into the pores of their skin. Badia’s hands are busy but her head is idle; she perfumes herself with lies to wash away the shrimp smell and pretends to be someone else. Badia can flap her wings as much as she likes. She’ll never fly.
This Is My Picture When I Was Dead
Jordania – The Netherlands
Director: Mahmoud al Massad
Cast: Bashir Mraish
Athens, 1983. The world press reports 4-year old Bashir is killed in the assassination of his father, a top PLO lieutenant. But what if death is not the end of his journey? What if he would come back to life today and would dig through his past and discover his future, only to witness the dream he and his father died for is becoming a nation turned against itself?
PROGRAMME (EXCLUSIVELY FOR PROFESSIONALS)
Monday 20th.
10.00 Chaplin of the Mountains
12.00 This Is My Picture When I Was Dead
15.00 House for Sale
17.00 Sur la planche