Atelier de coproduction franco-palestinien. Mairie de Paris 5 rue de Lobau Paris

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1 Atelier de coproduction franco-palestinien Mairie de Paris 5 rue de Lobau Paris 23 et 24 novembre 2015

2 Projets sélectionnés Green Almonds Momentum My eyes to my Friend My Grandmother Labiba The Year of Ashes MISSION DE PALESTINE EN FRANCE MINISTRY OF CULTURE STATE OF PALESTINE

3 p.1 Green Almonds Buthina Canaan Khoury p.3 Momentum Majdi El-Omari p.5 My eyes to my Friend Ula Tabari p.7 My Grandmother Labiba Khalil Al-Mozian p.9 The Year of Ashes Laila Abbas

Green Almonds Genre Fiction Format Digital, Colour Budget 1 007 500 Director Buthina Canaan Khoury Producer Buthina Canaan Khoury (Majd Production) Script Buthina Canaan Khoury, Abdullah Erekat

4 Green Almonds Genre Fiction Format Digital, Colour Budget Director Buthina Canaan Khoury Producer Buthina Canaan Khoury (Majd Production) Script Buthina Canaan Khoury, Abdullah Erekat Contact buthinack@hotmail.com Director s Statement While living in my homeland Palestine and living abroad in the US for a while, I personally came across many painful experiences and personal stories. This made me want to focus on what it is to take loving one s country for granted. I believe that the story of Green Almonds is perfect to explore the choice of priority we need to do under certain circumstances between raising and loving our children, and our love of our own country; of sharing the grief and guilt that we all are afraid to face, while trying hard to protect ourselves from the loss of a loved one. Ultimately, I believe this story can examine how involvement can effect and shape the rest of our life. Having studied filmmaking and photography, and honing my craft in documentary filmmaking up to this point, I believe I am ready to now take the step into fiction storytelling, while preserving what I have learned from documentary filmmaking which is to tell human stories with simplicity, and with truthful emotion, stories anched in our reality. I truly believe that making Green Almonds can affect many people worldwide. Touching both hearts and minds is what can be achieved through cinema and particularly through humanistic and universal fiction storytelling. Synopsis Palestine Salma, a strong-willed Palestinian-American mother, wants no more than for her teenage son Amjad to join her and her three daughters living back in their homeland of Palestine. When she finally convinces him to come for a visit, Salma can see that his mind is on one thing: going back to the USA to live with dad. It turns out that Amjad has an ulterior motive for coming to Palestine, which is to persuade his mother that they should all return to Michigan. Salma is helped involuntarily when the First Intifada breaks out and after Israeli authorities impose a curfew, Amjad is forced to postpone his return flight. Salma enrolls him into school where he meets the lovely Reem. Because of Reem, he develops an interest in the political situation even taking part in demonstrations against the Occupation. Slowly taking a liking to his environment, and falling in love with Reem, Amjad forms a special bond with his Grandfather, helps his sister deal with a bully at school and gets a taste of Palestinian culture and its traditions. He starts to feel at home. And then one day, Amjad goes missing. His body is found in a field not far from home, having been chased escaping a protest and then shot. Atelier de coproduction franco-palestinien 1

Full of grief and guilt, Salma takes her girls and is set to leave Palestine. Then, just when they are about to leave, to the delight and surprise of Salma, Amjad s father arrives.

5 Full of grief and guilt, Salma takes her girls and is set to leave Palestine. Then, just when they are about to leave, to the delight and surprise of Salma, Amjad s father arrives. He has returned home, realizing how badly his family needs a husband and father at this time, and how badly Palestine needs him too. The family ends up staying, fulfilling Salma s dream, but with the bitter sadness of losing Amjad. Buthina Canaan Khoury (participant) Producer and director s biography Buthina Canaan Khoury is a Palestinian independent filmmaker. She received her Bachelor degree in Filmmaking and Photography from the Massachusetts College of Fine Arts in Boston and established Majd Production Company in Ramallah city in The company was set up with the objective of making feature films and documentaries about various Palestinian issues, focusing particularly on women s social and political problems. Majd Production Company has produced three documentary films & one fiction short, including a commission by ARTE, France. Woman in struggle (2004) has won awards at the following Film Festivals: The Kazan Film Festival for Muslim Countries for Documentary Films; two awards at AlIsmailia Film Festival, Egypt (2005); The American Muslim Women Association, AMWA; and at San Diego Film Festival (2007). Maria s Grotto (2005) has won awards at the following Film Festivals : Green Unplugged Film Festival India (Best Documentary (2009); Silver Muhr award at Dubai film festiva; Jury Mention at Tatouan Film Festival; The Golden Hawk Arab Film Festival Rotterdam; Special Mention at Sguardia Altrove Film Festival. Taste the Revolution (2007), 27 min. film Arte, France Commission Nominated for II Ahmad Attia's Award for Dialogue of Cultures, courtesy of APIMED, at Medimed, Sitges/Spain. Live for your goal (2014), 35 min. film, Mexican film Short Plays, for the world cup Atelier de coproduction franco-palestinien 2

Momentum Genre Fiction Format Digital, Colour and Black and White Budget 900 000 Director Majdi El-Omari Producer Hanna Atallah Script Majdi El-Omari Contact +970 595 895 096 melomari@gmail.

6 Momentum Genre Fiction Format Digital, Colour and Black and White Budget Director Majdi El-Omari Producer Hanna Atallah Script Majdi El-Omari Contact Director s statement Although the two main characters have no inherent relation to Palestine or its culture, they are directly affected by it and become a mirror reflecting its situation. The film will adopt a lyrical style as it probes each character s inner world fraught with tensions and the intruding influences of political and social forces all of which lead the characters to make choices. Visual elements will play an organic part in determining the way the film unfolds. As in my previous work, I will be seeking to create a mood and communicate with the viewer through poetic atmosphere. The film will rely on cinematic elements to assemble a mosaic, which is not meant to be deconstructed or decoded, but to be experienced as an audio-visual creation. The film s unity will be revealed through these cinematic elements, which support the ambiance and rhythm. Synopsis Theatre artists Dorothy and Jim, live together in western Quebec. Accept an invitation to run a puppeteering workshop in Bethlehem. Once in Palestine, they discover that they will be living and working surrounded by refugee camp, Israeli settlements, separation wall, and checkpoint. Dorothy feels excited and takes every opportunity to discover the area and understand the situation, whereas Jim feels overwhelmed in this highly-charged environment. It is precisely because Palestine is very dynamic and charged place, that the two main characters reveal their true personalities. In Palestine, Dorothy is able to discover her strength and become independent from Jim. There, Jim first discovers his weakness and then comes to realise that he has lived an empty life until now. It is time for him to stop and look for the real meaning of life. And if there is no meaning, he must stop acting as if there is one. In a place where clear nonsense exists, embodied in a huge wall, and the whole world accepts its existence, Jim becomes a mirror reflecting the surrounding situation. Unexpected circumstances empower Dorothy and force Jim to go through an existential crisis. Atelier de coproduction franco-palestinien 3

Hanna Atallah Majdi El-Omari (participant) Producer s biography Hanna Atallah is a freelance filmmaker and producer and cultural art manager since 2002, who worked in Palestine and Egypt.

(fiction, documentary, commercials). Hanna was the initiator of the Palestinian memory documentation project in Talbiyeh Refugee camp in Jordan.

7 Hanna Atallah Majdi El-Omari (participant) Producer s biography Hanna Atallah is a freelance filmmaker and producer and cultural art manager since 2002, who worked in Palestine and Egypt. He worked as director, director assistant, executive producer and producer for several local and international channels like ART, Dubai tv, MBC and worked as director for different film projects (fiction, documentary, commercials). Hanna was the initiator of the Palestinian memory documentation project in Talbiyeh Refugee camp in Jordan. Most recently Hanna worked as a filmmaker mentor on the project Youth: occupied, the artistic director of the film Lab/Palestine and the director of Palestine Days of Cinema. Writer and director s biography Majdi El-Omari received a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in filmmaking from the Cairo Institute of Cinema in Egypt, and a Master in Fine Arts in Film Production (MFA) from Concordia University, in Montreal, Canada. After working as an assistant director and production manager on various feature and documentary films, El-Omari became a filmmaker, scriptwriter, producer and editor for short fictions and one feature film. El-Omari s previous films d auteur have been selected in several international festivals. They tell stories that grow out of the existential situation of individuals living in a world that excludes them. The focus is on their alienation, their desire to communicate, and their search for solace as they confront political or social forces. Momentum is his second feature film. Atelier de coproduction franco-palestinien 4

My eyes for my Friend Genre Documentary Format Digital, Colour Estimated Time 90 min Budget 540 359 Director Ula Tabari Producer Ula Tabari, Les Amoureuses Prod.

8 My eyes for my Friend Genre Documentary Format Digital, Colour Estimated Time 90 min Budget Director Ula Tabari Producer Ula Tabari, Les Amoureuses Prod. Script Ula Tabari Contact ulatabari@gmail.com Director s statement The film deals with the state of mind of a person who was forced to be in the dark; captured and guided blindly to the unknown. An experience that echoes to prisoners, as to all other kidnapped victims of other circumstances and they are numerous! This is cinema meeting between sounds and images, and neglected intimate stories of individuals from different places and times. Politicians had separated them and classified them as enemies, deforming their histories and using them in a divers power games. Synopsis Guided by a road map, told by a man who visited my country, with banded eyes, 30 years ago, I am traveling back home in search for images in order to collect and illustrate his experience and a land which were printed deeply in his soul He had 17 years old when he got arrested by the occupation army and imprisoned in another country in which he was and still denied entry. The film is based on an agreement between us, where I offer my eyes in exchange to a secret map, that is engraved in his mind, with a fascinating accuracy of information and details, lights, shadows, smells and sounds, illustrating the road he passed, from the borders to the prison. Atelier de coproduction franco-palestinien 5

Ula Tabari (participant) Producer s biography Alashiqat /les Amoureuses productions and consultancy is a recent Palestinian production house currently registered in Haifa and operates from Haifa,

Based on international professional networking, for the sake of developing the Palestinian cinema industry and providing solutions for films to be produced without political compromises!

9 Ula Tabari (participant) Producer s biography Alashiqat /les Amoureuses productions and consultancy is a recent Palestinian production house currently registered in Haifa and operates from Haifa, Ramallah and Paris. Based on international professional networking, for the sake of developing the Palestinian cinema industry and providing solutions for films to be produced without political compromises! Founded in 2014, by Ula Tabari, and carries currently three projects; From Gaza with Love (in production) by Mwafaq Al khateeb, in co-production with Norway, & Photo Nabil (in development) by Samah Hayek, in co-production with France. Director s biography Ula Tabari is a filmmaker, actress with an experience in various tasks in film production. Filmmaker of Private investigation. Doc. 90mn. (2002). Jinga 48. Doc (2009). A video diary ( (2001) & a short fiction Diaspora (2005), official selection at Venice film festival (2005). Actress in films like Villa Touma (2014), Inheritance (2012), Carlos (2009), Munich (2005), My camera and I (2003), The Arab dream (1998), Chronicle of a disappearance (1996). Script/Production/post production services & consultancy in film such as; Chacun sa bonne by Maher abi Samra (2015), Roshmia (2014), Last Friday (2012), An everyday breeding graveyard by Shram Alidi (2012) (In progress), When pigs have wings (2010), Parmi nous France (2010), Dream of Adama France (2007), Forget Baghdad. Atelier de coproduction franco-palestinien 6

My Grandmother Labiba Genre Fiction Format 16/9 Budget 342 620 Director Khalil Al-Mozian Producer Jamal Abu Al-Qumsan Script Nasser Eleiwa Contact +970 599 322 673 klm97@windowslive.

10 My Grandmother Labiba Genre Fiction Format 16/9 Budget Director Khalil Al-Mozian Producer Jamal Abu Al-Qumsan Script Nasser Eleiwa Contact Director s statement Ever since I became aware of the world around me, I realized we lived under occupation and that we are immigrants. I grew hearing my grandmother stories about the old good days. When I came cross My Grandmother Labiba story I was intrigued by the endless stories I can still learn, so much similarities to the ones I grew up hearing from my own grandmother. I can highly relate to Jamal/ the grandson. Grandmother Labiba, a woman from Gaza born in the late nineteenth century. She was known of her beauty, strong character, and courage. A women who outlived four husbands must have held so strength. Her life with each husband happened to follow each historical and political shift in Palestine since the Ottoman empire to the Israeli occupation, till she finally bids farewell to the occupation with last breath on her own bed at her home in Gaza. I fell in love with Grandmother Labiba, and saw myself in her grandson Jama. I am so keen to learn about all the stories I could possibly get through her intense and full life. Through this historical drama based on the actual life of a Gazan woman we explore critical details of the lives and conditions that accompanied an over populated space dense space as Gaza. Synopsis A story of ordinary death case on an extraordinary day, June 5th, 1967, the day Israeli forces invaded the Gaza Strip. Her death, which is laurelled by the smoke of war, its shelling and the casualties, has concluded an era, which extended for half a century, in which Hajja Labiba's glory has witnessed the Turkish governance, British mandate, Israeli Occupation & Egyptian rule of the Gaza Strip. Hajja Labiba has become a bequest in her daughter's consciousness Fariha, who is burdened by the death of her mother, on this fatal day. Her motherthe legend- has died on her solitude far away from her, in her house lying on the borderline between Gaza & Israel. Fariha's eldest son Younis, was serving in the Palestine Liberation Army amidst a raging war, her husband was coming back home on that day from Cairo through the Sinai desert, where the war 1967 has started, her stubborn son Jamal who accompanied her on the day Hajja Labiba died and who hates his grandmother, and hates her borderline-house. It was his destiny to accompany his mother on that day to rediscover grandmother Labiba, and identify her prosperous history. Yet, our mass grave remains opened to receive our martyrs from Amman, Beirut, Ramallah & Gaza once again. This is the story of our movie, the story of the open mass grave, which no one yet knows when it will be closed Atelier de coproduction franco-palestinien 7

Jamal Abu Al-Qumsan Khalil Al-Mozian (participant) Producer s biography Jamal Abu Al-Qumsan is a Palestinian film and theater professional born in Gaza in 1967.

Over the past five years he was the Production Manager of MashoMatook, Silent Doc, and Guevara of Gaza. Ar.

11 Jamal Abu Al-Qumsan Khalil Al-Mozian (participant) Producer s biography Jamal Abu Al-Qumsan is a Palestinian film and theater professional born in Gaza in He directed, produced, and performed since 1980s. He produced the two features Sound Man and Sara in Over the past five years he was the Production Manager of MashoMatook, Silent Doc, and Guevara of Gaza. Ar. Al-Qumsan is the Founder and Chairperson of the first theater and cinema in Gaza (Al Jala a House for Arts and Culture). Director s biography Khalil Al-Mozian is a Palestinian filmmaker. He has a bachelor s degree in film directing from Saint Petersburg, Russia. His documentaries include: Sharon was a war criminal (2005) and Gaza-Sderot (2009), Gaza 36 mm (2012). His short films include Birth of a portrait (1997) and Masho Matook (2010). His video art includes: Names You Want (2001), Expired Show (2007) and No Way Out (2007). His Feature Film Include Sara (2014). Atelier de coproduction franco-palestinien 8

The Year of Ashes Genre Historical fiction Format Digital, Color Budget 700 000 Director Laila Abbas Producer Laila Abbas Script Laila Abbas Contact +970 599 332 933 laila.abbas.films@gmail.

12 The Year of Ashes Genre Historical fiction Format Digital, Color Budget Director Laila Abbas Producer Laila Abbas Script Laila Abbas Contact Director s statement Can a film shake the collective narrative and identity of a people? What if our ancestors fought and resented what we consider today a major part of our collective national identity and pride? Is it possible to hear the voices of old tormented souls who suffered from what we now hold dear and consider unshakeable? In Palestine, history is hiding in every little corner. Old Palestinian narratives still shape the lives of billions of people around the world. Even though this film is set in the past, what the characters go through and experience is still very much relevant today in the Arab region. This story is about conflict, resistance, transition and identity. In this film, three religions come face to face with each other. Those old voices from the past get to reveal what they think of each other without worrying about the 21st century invention of political correctness. Synopsis In 639 A.D. Palestine, the serenity of a monastery that lies on top of a mountain is about to get disrupted by very unusual circumstances. The only monk left there is a quiet man who makes little wooden houses for birds as a pastime and earns a living by making wooden tables and beds for people in nearby villages. Two Jewish sisters seek the monastery after they leave their village after it was hit by the plague. After days of looking for the monastery and getting lost in the wilderness, they finally get there. In a time where the tension between Christians and Jews was escalating, they decide to hide the fact that they re Jews to make sure they get welcome in the monastery. A Christian mother and her son come to the monastery to escape their besieged city. The city of Caesarea has been resisting the Muslim troops for years. Martha is a rich city woman who had a successful winery. Escaping the siege and getting to the monastery has caused her to experience all kinds of unbearable hardships. The monk now has to accommodate all the newcomers. The newcomers also have to learn to live together under tough circumstances. After initial hostility, Martha Atelier de coproduction franco-palestinien 9

13 the Caesarean Christian woman becomes friendlier. But the Jewish sisters Rifka and Malka have more things to cause tension between them. When these characters seem to find a way to coexist, the most unwanted newcomer arrives, a Muslim soldier who was left behind after he caught the plague. When the news of the Muslim soldier hidden in the monastery reaches the Christian rebels in the nearby villages, the life of everyone in the monastery is turned upside down. Laila Abbas (participant) Director and producer s biography Independent producer, writer, director Laila Abbas started out her career in TV. Her passion to tell stories made her leave her managerial job to pursue filmmaking. She studied film producing in London and wrote and directed a number of short films (Visa, Fruity Dreams, 5 Cups & A Cup). Her last work was her 50-minute documentary Ice & Dust in 2014, a true work of guerilla-style filmmaking. Laila is now teaching filmmaking at the Institute of Modern Media in Palestine. Atelier de coproduction franco-palestinien 10

Contact Emmanuelle Deprats Chargée de mission coproduction internationale +33 1 44 34 36 88 emmanuelle.deprats@cnc.

14 Contact Emmanuelle Deprats Chargée de mission coproduction internationale emmanuelle.deprats@cnc.fr Centre national du cinéma et de l image animée (CNC) une publication du Centre national du cinéma et de l image animée Atelier de coproduction franco-palestinien 23 et 24 novembre 2015 Mairie de Paris 5 rue de Lobau Paris

For My Children. A Film by Michal Aviad. WMM 462 Broadway, 5 th Floor New York NY Tel:

For My Children. A Film by Michal Aviad. WMM 462 Broadway, 5 th Floor New York NY Tel: A Film by Michal Aviad synopsis Living and raising children in Israel while the home television explodes with violence: When is it time to leave?. Didn t all the grandparents become immigrants because