Cannes Docs

Runtime: 100'

Expected release: January, 2025

Production stage: Production

Budget: $510 019 (19% in place)

1st feature: No

Looking for: Buyers, Co-Producers, Gap Financing

Synopsis:

Nine years after his father’s death, the filmmaker Mahdi Fleifel returns from years of exile to the small town of Elsinore in Denmark where he grew up and begins a personal journey of reconciliation. My Father’s House is a film about memory, exile, and a father and his son.

Director’s profile:

Born in Dubai, Mahdi Fleifel lives and works between Denmark, England and Greece. A graduate of the UK’s National Film & Television School, he studied Fiction directing under Stephen Frears and Pawel Pawlikowski. In 2010 he founded the company Nakba FilmWorks. Fleifel’s critically acclaimed debut feature, A WORLD NOT OURS, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and received over 30 awards, including the Berlinale Peace Prize and the Edinburgh, Yamagata and DOC:NYC Grand Jury Prizes. He was named Best New Nordic Voice at Nordisk Panorama and received the New Talent Award at CPH:DOX in 2013.

Producer’s profile:

Geoff Arbourne is the Emmy award-winning producer and founder of Inside Out Films. An independent and enterprising production company built around a global community of filmmakers operating out of the U.K. and South Africa.

Runtime: 90'

Expected release: December, 2024

Budget: €261 740 (30% in place)

1st feature: Yes

Looking for: Festivals, Sales Agents / Distributors, Buyers, Gap Financing

Synopsis:

Palestine Comedy Club follows five Palestinian stand-up comedians who write and tour a stand-up comedy show exploring the unlikely, often dark humour that surrounds the complexity of Palestinian identity. What starts as a blending of comic traditions to encourage honest and open reflections through the shared enjoyment of laughter becomes an existential imperative to share common humanity.

Director’s profile:

Regash (Alaa Aliabdallah) has worked as a photographer and filmmaker with many artists and organisations such as the Palestinian Circus School, Freedom Theatre, Stereo48 Dance Company, and Sarreyet Ramallah. Regash is an internationally recognised portrait and street photographer, with an online audience of over 20,000 people. He produces photography for international fashion brands and magazines. Palestine Comedy Club is Regash’s debut feature documentary. He personally shot the comedy tour, all six comedy performances and five interviews. Regash is also including his beautiful street photography in the Palestine Comedy Club film, creating collage stories of each of the cities visited on the tour to provide audiences with a deeper dive into the diverse cultures found across Palestine.

Producer’s profile:

Charlotte Knowles is an award-winning TV and film producer. Her work has been featured on BBC, ITN, and Arte. Notable achievements include her term as CEO of the Independent Film Trust, where she oversaw the development and production of various critically acclaimed projects, including the award-winning, Scottish BAFTA and BIFA nominated documentary “Rebel Dykes.” In 2022, Charlotte founded Tough Crowd Limited, a production company exploring narratives at the intersection of politics and pop-culture. Palestine Comedy Club is the first feature documentary to appear from Tough Crowd. Under the Tough Crowd banner, Charlotte also created the CreativeHQ App, a mobile app providing professional development and business coaching for creative media producers.

Runtime: 90' / 52' for TV

Expected release: February, 2027

Production stage: In-Production (55-60% shot)

Budget: $120,000 (35-30% in place)

1st feature: Yes

Looking for: Financing, Co-Production, Distributors, Buyers, Strategic Guidance

Synopsis:

In this reflexive and creative documentary, Mayar picks up the camera to capture the intricate lives of her Palestinian family, who have resided in Doha for over 60 years. Against the backdrop of never-ending conflicts in their hometown, Gaza, the family’s Doha home reflects their turmoil. The focal point is Mayar’s mother, Amal, whose sense of displacement and grief are concealed beneath a veil of sarcasm.

Director’s profile:

Mayar Hamdan, a Palestinian multi-platform writer, director, and producer, brings a distinctive design sensibility to her work, exploring MENA-centered themes like migration, displacement, generational trauma, and female-centered stories through the lens of color theory. With a background in art & technology from CalArts, film training & development via the Doha Film Institute, game writing for multiple indie studios in Barcelona, and as a Lead Narrative Designer for Saudi game studio Lunacy, she now serves as a story consultant for multiple AAA games and as a writer for a Saudi Netflix series in Development. Her diverse portfolio includes writing, directing, and producing projects like ‘Beit Byoot’ (2019), available on Sundance TV, ‘Don’t Get Too Comfortable’ (2021), which premiered at the Venice International Film Festival, and Ibqi: A Visual EP, set to be released in 2024.

Producer’s profile:

Shaima Al-Tamimi, a Yemeni-East African visual storyteller based in Qatar, uses her lived experiences to address social issues focusing on migration, healing, and sociocultural dynamics. A 2020 Photography and Social Justice Fellow at the Magnum Foundation, she created ‘Don’t Get Too Comfortable’ (2021), which was nominated for the Orizzonti Award for Best Short Film at the Venice International Film Festival and showcased at over 35 festivals worldwide. Shaima is also on the board of YWT, an organization based in Yemen that focuses on providing opportunities in film mentorship and production to the youth of Yemen.

Runtime: 85'

Expected release: April, 2025

Production stage: Post-production

Budget: $93 150 (41% in place)

1st feature: Yes

Looking for: Co-producers, Gap Financing, Distributors

Synopsis:

Less than two weeks before shooting a movie by Cherine Dabis in the West Bank, a war break out in Gaza. For a week, the camera follows the studio crew, documenting the war’s impact on the artists and showcasing their adaptation to tough decisions amid an intensely harsh reality.

Director’s profile:

Bilal Alkhatib is a filmmaker from Palestine, holding a BA degree in Media and Tv. He started working in the film industry as a cinematographer and gaffer, He has written and directed several documentary and short films that participated in the international festivals, such as the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival. His recent film “Palestine 87” won numerous awards, Golden Tanit for Best Short Film at the Carthage Film Festival and Best Film at the Jerusalem Arab Film Festival. Bilal is also working on his first feature film and studying master’s degree in cinema.

Producer’s profile:

Ala’ Abu Ghoush is a filmmaker from Jerusalem, He has worked as a production designer in numerous feature films that have received various international awards, In 2009 he moved to France, where he studied cinema at the ENSAV, He directed three short films: “Hammurabi,” “Goldfish,” and “Metro Gaza.”

Tania El Khoury After filmmaking and psychology studies in Beirut, Tania moved to Paris in 2002 she finished a master’s degree in cinema. In 2017, she founded the production company Khamsin Films in Beirut and in 2020 she founded the Paris-based production company Les Films de l’Altaï. She produced recently the latest feature fiction of filmmaker Ghassan Salhab, The River (International Competition, Locarno 2021), Sonia Ben Slama’s newest feature documentary Machtat (International competition Visions du Réel, ACID Cannes 2023)