Solitaire
+Closing Night Film
+Festival Awards Announced
+Minnesota Premiere
+Lebanon
Sunday, 10/1 at St Anthony Main Theatre
7:00 p.m.
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THE PARROT
Amjad Al-Rasheed and Darin Sallam
short / drama
18 mins / 2016
Jordan / Germany
Arabic, Yiddish, and Hebrew with English subtitles
Minnesota premiere
A Mizrahi Jewish family from Tunisia settles into their new life and their new home in Haifa, Palestine in 1948. The house is lovely, but it contains the memories of its previous Arab residents and the pet they left behind: a large and chatty parrot.
Festivals and Awards:
Cannes Film Festival, France, 2017
Dubai International Film Festival, UAE 2017
Darin Sallam has directed four award-winning short films including Still Alive and The Dark Outside, which screened at Cannes in 2010 and 2013, respectively.
Amjad Al-Rasheed is a Jordanian director and producer who attended the Berlinale Talent Campus in 2007. He has directed five award-winning short films as well as the Jordanian comedy series The Rania Show.
SOLITAIRE (MAHBAS)
Sophie Boutros
narrative / comedy
92 mins / 2016
Lebanon / Jordan / Egypt
Arabic with English subtitles
Minnesota premiere
Set in a Lebanese village, Solitaire (Mahbas) uses humor to address the way regional tensions manifest in people’s personal lives. While Thérèse (Julia Kassar) joyfully prepares for the overnight visit of her daughter’s suitor and his parents, she shares the happy news of engagement with her beloved brother. It just so happens that this brother was killed nearly twenty years earlier by a Syrian bomb, and Therese has blamed the entire country ever since. Only when the long-awaited guests are at her doorstep does Therese discover that they are Syrian, and after several outlandish attempts to break the engagment, it seems she’ll have to come to terms with the past.
Festivals and Awards:
Dubai International Film Festival, UAE, 2017
Oran International Arab Film Festival, Algeria, 2017
Arab Film Festival Australia, 2017
Sophie Boutros earned a Bachelor in directing for television and film at the Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts, Lebanon. For six years, Boutros worked as a director on several television shows in Lebanon and Dubai. She has also directed numerous music videos. Solitaire (2016) is her first feature film.
