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MARKETSiCALENDAR iCannes Film Market [May '08]


Within the framework of the Cannes Film Festival, Med-Screen has attended the Marché du Film (Film Market)which has taken place in Cannes between the 14th and the 23rd of May 2008.

As it was the case last year, Med-Screen had its own stand, located at the Marché du Film, Palais 1 – Stand 17.02.
10 MEDA films have been screened at this edition of the Marché du Film. To ensure their promotion, Med-Screen has printed a special catalogue which was distributed to the professionals.

In addition, promotional material was made available for all the films.

The selected films were all recent productions coming from the 7 Arab MEDA countries (Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Morocco and Tunisia).




Feature Films

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Aden
Rabah Ameur Zaimeche, Algeria/France, 2008, 93’

Market Screening: Palais H | 21/05/2008 at 09:30 AM

Synopsis:
In a rundown industrial park, Mao, a Muslim boss, owns a company that specializes in repairing trucks and pallets. He decides to open a mosque and designates the imam without consulting the workforce…



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Ayrouwen

Brahim Tsaqi, Algeria, 2007, 80’

Market Screening: Palais H | 19/05/2008 at 09:30 AM

Synopsis:
Two beings.
That everything separates.
Him, Amayas, almost forty, is of the desert… a Tuareg.
She, Claude, hardly taken out of the adolescence, is of a big European city. They meet in the desert, become friends then lovers... He always loves Mina, a girl of his desert which he cannot marry because of a prohibition. She is foster sister.
He leaves for Europe to join Claude. The father of Claude stays in the desert to help find some water… But he makes a deal with the devil "as he says." The frequent news of Mina from the desert prevents the serenity of the love between Amayas and Claude…
Mina's deaf brother dies mysteriously.


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Burned Hearts
Ahmad El Maanouni, Morocco, 2007, 84’

Market Screening: Palais G | 20/05/2008 at 12:00 PM

Synopsis:
Amin, a young architect who lives in Paris, returns suddenly to Fès, Morocco where his uncle is dying.
He did not speak to the man who brought him up since he left his hometown Fès ten years earlier to study and settle in Paris.
The visits of the young architect at the hospital revive the deep wounds of his painful childhood.
His long-time friend, the craftsman Aziz, exhorts him not to surrender to the resentment of the past.
The uncle’s death does not soothe the young man’s agonies forcing him to find his own answers within his soul.


i Eye of the Sun
Ibrahim El-Batout, Egypt, 2008, 90’

Market Screening: Palais G | 20/05/2008 at 2:00 PM

Synopsis:
From once being the capital of Egypt during the Pharaonic era and a sacred location marked by the visit of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, Ein Shams has become one of Cairo’s poorest and most neglected neighborhoods. Through the eyes of Shams, an eleven-year-old girl inhabitant of this neighborhood, the film captures the sadness and magic that envelops everyday life in Egypt. In a series of heart-rending events, the diverse characters of the film showcase the intricacies of Egypt’s political system and social structure, and give a glimpse into the grievances of the Middle East region and the complex relationships of its nations.



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Falling from Earth
Chadi Zeneddine, Lebanon/France, 2008, 75’

Market Screening: Palais G | 17/05/2008 at 12:00 PM

Synopsis:
Does it really mean that we have lost our sense of reality when everything sounds like constant explosions?
Youssef, a wise fool, lives in the remains of a building collecting photographs of happy people. Behind each photograph lie millions of implosions of a city wounded by time.
Chapter after chapter, they are all still waiting for... Beirut



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Khalass
Borhane Alaouie, Lebanon/France/Belgium, 2007, 101’

Market Screening: Palais F | 16/05/2008 at 9:30 AM

Synopsis:
Present Day Beirut, in the midst of chaotic reconstruction. Ahmed and Robby became friends during the war, sharing similar dreams, Ahmed's: poetry and theatre, Robby's: cinema. Both dreamed of a better world. Like many others, they fought for that dream. But they came out of the war with a bitter feeling of betrayal and disappointment. Ahmed works as a columnist for a local newspaper. Robby tries to make ends meet by directing vague video documentaries about the environment, but nobody is interested in them



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Salt of this Sea
Annemarie Jacir, Palestine/France, 2008, 109’

Market Screening: Riviera 3 | 19/05/2008 at 3:30 PM

Synopsis:
Soraya, 28, born and raised in Brooklyn, decides to return to live in Palestine, a country that her family was exiled from in 1948. On arriving in Ramallah, Soraya tries to recover the money left in an account by her grandparents but meets with refusal from the bank. Her path then crosses that of Emad, a young Palestinian whose ambition, unlike hers, is to leave the country for good.
To escape the constraints linked to the situation in Palestine but also to earn their freedom, Soraya and Emad take things into their own hands, even if this means breaking the law. In this quest for life, we follow their trail through the History of a lost Palestine.



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She & He
Elyes Baccar, Tunisia, 2006, 83’

Market Screening: Riviera 3 | 21/05/2008 at 12:00 PM

Synopsis:
He chooses to close the door of his soul, the window of his life, and tries to sleep for a long time. No television, no radio, no telephone and no contact with the external world…
She came in a rainy night and knocked on his door. He refused her by ignoring then rejecting her presence. She finally succeeds in changing his perception of the reality. Maybe she was not so real…


i The Yellow House
Amor Hakkar, Algeria/France, 2007, 87’

Market Screening: Riviera 3 | 18/05/2008 at 12:00 PM
Synopsis:
Aya, is a twelve-year-old girl. She’s digging an arid patch of land.
A police car is coming close. One of the policemen hands her a letter that informs her that her older brother, who was doing his duty in the police, has died in an accident.
Mouloud, their father, is a simple farmer from the Aures area. He jumps on to his tricycle and, defying all the bans, dashes to collect his son’s body.
Fatima, the mother, is in a deep sadness.
Will this father, very affected and helped by his daughter Aya, make his wife and children smile again?





Documentary
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Recycle
Mahmoud Al-Massad, Jordan/Germany/The Netherlands, 2007, 80’

Market Screening: Palais C | 20/5/2008 at 12:00 PM

Synopsis:
What makes a terrorist in Zarqa, Jordan’s second largest city with close to 1,000,000 people; it is a much-debated question. Zarqa was the birthplace of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia before being killed by American forces in 2006. Many in town knew al Zarqawi, and Zarqa continues to be a source of new recruits to jihad.
With inspired cinematography and remarkable access, Jordanian/Palestinian filmmaker Mahmoud Al-Massad charts the daily life of an Islamic man in one of Zarqa’s poorest neighborhoods, revealing the rhythms of Jordanian life against the backdrop of the ‘war on terrorism’ that reaches into the living rooms of many Muslim families.

 



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This project is supported by the European Union in the framework of the euromed audiovisual programme

Last update July 2008