A Week of Lebanese Cinema 2015 / Taht alqasf / Lebanon 2007
Dubai resident Zeina sends her son to stay with her sister in southern Lebanon just a week before the outbreak of war in 2006. Now she must rush back to her war-torn native country in order to find him. This gripping road movie blends fiction with documentary elements of the most authentic kind.
In order to save her son Karim from marital discord and divorce proceedings, Lebanese Zeina sends him from their home in Dubai to her sister’s house in southern Lebanon – where just a week later war breaks out. The woman, wracked with fear and feelings of foreboding, manages to return to her native country. But now she must journey south to a region devastated by bombing raids, and her only “comfort” is an idiosyncratic taxi driver named Toni. “The entire film, from the first idea to the end of post production, took only one year [...] I shot the entire film intuitively. It was a visceral expression of anger and pain from a Lebanese man who can no longer tolerate seeing his country ransacked by war,” says filmmaker Philippe Aractingi. He began filming his experimental work only three days after the outbreak of the 2006 Lebanon War, mixing fiction with documentary realism of the most authentic nature. “There were only four actors; all of the others – refugees, journalists, and military – were being themselves.”
Karel Och
94 min / Color, DIGIBETA
Director Philippe Aractingi
/ Screenplay Philippe Aractingi
/ Dir. of Photography Nidal Abdel Khalek
/ Music Rene Aubry
/ Editor Deena Charara
/ Producer Philippe Aractingi
/ Production Fantascope Production
/ Coproduction Capa Cinema, Starfield Productions, Art’Mell
/ Cast Nada Abou Farhat, Georges Khabbaz, Rawya El Chab, Bshara Atallah
/ Contact Fantascope Production
Philippe Aractingi (b. 1964, Beirut), a filmmaker of French-Lebanese origin, has shot over 40 films, from news reports and documentaries to more personal offerings. After living 12 years in France, Aractingi returned to his native country to create the first Lebanese musical following the Civil War. Bosta was the result, a movie that found its way into distribution in more than 20 countries. Under the Bombs is his second feature. In his third, this time purely autobiographical film Héritages (2014), Aractingi tells of the history of his own family living in exile over the course of four generations.
Fantascope Production
National Musueum Square, Karim Salemeh Blg , 2nd floor, , Beirut
Lebanon
Phone: +96 113 975 61
E-mail: [email protected]
Philippe Aractingi
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