Projects

Cannes Docs

Bye Bye Tiberias

Original title: Bye Bye Tiberias

Directed by: Lina Soualem

Produced by: Jean-Marie Nizan (Beall Productions, France)

Country of production: France, Belgium, Palestine, Qatar

Runtime: 80'

Expected release: 2023

Production stage: Post-Production (editing)

Budget: €369,108 (65,13 % in place)

1st feature: No

Looking for: Gap financing, festivals, international sales agent & distributors, french distributor, buyers, co-producers

Synopsis:

30 years ago, Palestinian actress Hiam Abbass left her native village Deir Hanna in Galilee to follow her acting dream in France. Camera in hand, her daughter Lina questions her mother’s bold choices and the way the women in her family – who she has left behind – have influenced her life. How do those who live on the screen of our memories define who we are today ?

Director’s profile:

French-Palestinian-Algerian filmmaker and actress, based in Paris. After studying History and Political Science at La Sorbonne University, Lina started worked as a programmer in film festivals, such as the International Human Rights Film Festival in Buenos Aires, among others. Her debut feature documentary Their Algeria premiered in Visions du Réel 2020 and received several award such as First Film prize in CINEMED 2020, Best Arab Documentary in El Gouna Film Festival 2020, Best Feature Length Arab Documentary at Amman International Film Festival 2021, Best Documentary Award at Cinemania Film Festival 2021. Lina acted in three feature films directed by Hafsia Herzi, Hiam Abbass and Rayhana. She is currently developing her second feature documentary Bye Bye Tiberias, and works as a co-author & researcher on fictions, documentaries and TV series such as Oussekine (Disney+).

Producers’s profile:

Jean-Marie Nizan is a director and producer of documentaries and audiovisual programs. After studying architecture, he turns toward moving images. His films are broadcasted on Canal+, France Télévision, TF1 or Arte. He directed films about cinema in Iran, China, Thaïland, Argentina and in Australia, about the work of Daniel Buren and a documentary on Robin Wood for Arte. With Beall Productions, he dedicates himself to the production of documentaries, including Boléro, A Global Hit by Damien Cabrespines and Anne-Solen Douguet (Arte), Philippe Doumic, the twinkling eye by Sébastien Cauchon and Laurence Doumic (OCS, TV5Monde), The Cinematograph, Birth of an Art by Stefan Cornic (Arte), Mad In Belgium by Yves Montmayeur (Ciné+, BeTV).

Cannes Docs

Donkey Boys

Original title: فتية الحمير

Directed by: Ahmad Al-Bazz

Produced by: Ameen Nayfeh (Odeh Films, Palestine), Paul Cadieux (Megafun Productions Inc, Canada)

Country of production: Palestine, Canada

Runtime: 70'

Expected release: Late 2022

Production stage: Post Production

Budget: € 250,000 (50% in place)

1st feature: Yes

Looking for: Festivals, buyers

Synopsis:

Donkey Boys is a humorous, intimate look at daily life in the West Bank, seen through the eyes of a young activist and veterinary student. Mounes and his friends are on a mission to create the greatest donkey tour Palestine has ever seen. It’s a terrible business idea and destined for failure, but, like their stubborn donkeys, our heroes defiantly persevere in the face of economic and political obstacles.

Director’s profile:

Ahmad Al-Bazz, born in 1993, is a multi-award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker based in the West Bank city of Nablus, Palestine. Ahmad holds an MA degree in Film and Television Studies and Creative Practice from the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom (2018), and a BA degree in Media and Mass Communication from An-Najah National University in Palestine (2014). Since 2012, Ahmad has been a member of the Activestills documentary photography collective.

Producers’s profile:

Born in Palestine in 1988. Despite an early interest in filmmaking, in 2010 he earned his B.Sc. in Nursing from Al-Quds University. Two years later, he earned an MFA in film production from the Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts in Jordan with the goal of being able to tell authentic stories from his region. Beside writing and directing award winning short films, in 2020 Ameen Finished his first feature narrative 200 Meters starring Ali Suliman. Which premiered in the 77th Venice Film Festival and won the BNL people’s Choice Award at the Venice Days competition. The film was also Jordan’s official submission to the Oscars 2021. So far the film had won a total of 20 international film awards.

Cannes Docs

Out of Place

Original title: خارج المكان

Directed by: Mohammed Al Majdalawi

Produced by: Manolo Diaz Rämö, Beatrice Pourbagher Garcia (Filmilia AB, Sweden)

Country of production: Sweden, Qatar

Runtime: 90', 58'

Expected release: April, 2023

Production stage: Production

Budget: € 302,259 (20,3% in place)

1st feature: Yes

Looking for: Co-producers, gap financing, sales agents/distributors

Synopsis:

A coming of age story about four Palestinians dabke dancers from Jabalia refugee camp, who now live in Europe. Through material filmed for 20 years, the film explores dabke and how its meaning and importance changes for the characters – from resistance of the occupation in Gaza to the struggle to revive their cultural heritage in exile.

Director’s profile:

Mohammed Al-Majdalawi was born in Palestine. He has a masters degree in documentary film from Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts. While living on the Gaza Strip, he worked as crew for a number of international films including Bridges Over Blood and Eyewitness Gaza. He also made his own film, Gaza Art Through Barbed Wire. He is currently working on his documentary Out Of Place and To Mai.

Producers’s profile:

Manolo Diaz Rämö was born in Stockholm, Sweden. He has a bachelor’s degree in Documentary film from Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts. In his films Manolo often explores the longing for something unreachable, in the past or the future, usually connected to migration. His films have been nominated for numerous awards and his latets documentary Like a mountain is screened at SVT.

Beatrice Pourbagher Garcia was born in Halland, Sweden. She has a bachelor’s degree in film production from Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts. Beatrice became a producer since she is convinced that everyone has a story to tell but many lack the privilege to do so. She has worked with numerous fiction and documentary films that have been screened in festivals around the world.

Cannes Docs

The Jacket

Original title: The Jacket

Directed by: Mathijs Poppe

Produced by: Elisa Heene (Mirage, Belgium)

Country of production: Belgium, France, Lebanon

Runtime: 80', 50'

Expected release: May, 2023

Production stage: Preproduction

Budget: €325,750 (63% in place)

1st feature: Yes

Looking for: Festivals, sales agents / distributors, buyers, gap financing

Synopsis:

Jamal Hindawi (50), Palestinian, lives with his family in Shatila camp in Beirut, where he makes political theatre. He is currently working on a play that tells the story of an old jacket that symbolises the Palestinian identity. But the evening before the premiere, Jamal loses the theatre prop. He starts a nightly journey through the streets of Beirut and is confronted with a city in radical transition.

Director’s profile:

Mathijs Poppe, born in 1990 in Ghent (Belgium), graduated in 2017 with great distinction from School of Arts Ghent (KASK) with Ours is a Country of Words. For this medium length documentary, he worked together with a couple of families in Shatila, a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, to tell a story that balances on the thin line between fiction and documentary. The film was selected for Visions du Réel, screened at numerous international film festivals around the world and got awarded with a Wildcard by the Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF). Since then, Mathijs has developed several film and video projects as a director, cameraman and editor. At the moment Mathijs is working on his first feature film, The Jacket, in which he will continue and deepen his collaboration with the Palestinian community in Lebanon.

Producers’s profile:

Before establishing her own production company Mirage, Elisa Heene worked within different Belgian companies and contributed to projects such as Home by Fien Troch and The Miracle of Almería by Moon Blaisse. Meanwhile, she also independently produced documentary Ours is a Country of Words by Mathijs Poppe. In 2017 she joined Serendipity Films and started developing and producing documentaries and fiction films, such as Dark Rider by Eva Küpper and Howling by Laura Van Haecke. In 2020 she founded Mirage to work independently with authors and filmmakers who are critical of the world they live in and who explore new artistic terrains. Elisa is currently producing several projects including features Holly by Fien Troch and Skiff by Cecilia Verheyden and documentary The Jacket by Mathijs Poppe. She is also an alumna of the MAIA and Eurodoc Workshops and the Rotterdam Lab.