PALESTINE / FRANCE / QATAR
2015 / WORLD PREMIERE
1H24 – IN ARABIC
Synopsis
Gaza Strip, nowadays. Christine’s beauty salon is heaving with female clients: a bitter divorcée, a religious woman, a lunatic addicted to prescription drugs and a young bride-to-be among others. But their day of leisure is disrupted when gunfire breaks out across the street. A gangland family has stolen the lion from Gaza’s zoo, and Hamas has decided it’s time to settle old scores. Stuck in the salon, the women start to unravel...
DIRECTOR: Tarzan & Arab Nasser
PRODUCTION: Rashid Adelhamid - Marie Legrand - Rani Massalha
SCREENPLAY: Tarzan & Arab Nasser
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Eric Devin
EDITING: Sophie Reine
SOUND: Baha’a Othman - Christophe Etrillard - Kevin Feildel - Yann Legay
PRODUCTION DESIGN: Tarzan & Arab Nasser
MUSIC: Benjamin Grospiron
CAST:
Hiam Abbass
Maisa Abd Elhadi
Manal Awad
Mirna Sakhla
Dina Shuhaiber
Victoria Balitska
PRODUCTION
LES FILMS DU TAMBOUR
Marie Legrand
Rani Massalha
Tel. +33 (0)6 32 43 91 85
Tel. +33 (0)6 14 55 14 05
marie@filmsdutambour.com
rani@filmsdutambour.com
MADE IN PALESTINE PROJECT
Rashid Abdelhamid
Tel. +33 962 777 00 66 66
Tel. +33 (0)6 35 37 86 91
madeinpal.project@gmail.com
CO-PRODUCTION
FULL HOUSE
Didar Domehri
Laurent Baudens
Gaël Nouaille
Tel. +33 (0)6 70 79 05 17
laurent@fullhouse-films.com
MILLE ET UNE FILMS
Gilles Padovani
Tel. +33 (0)6 75 37 11 32
gillespadovani@mille-et-une-films.fr
ABBOUT PRODUCTIONS
Georges Schoucair
Tel. +961 3 67 67 07
georges@abboutproductions.com
DISTRIBUTION
LE PACTE
Xavier Hirigoyen
Tel. +33 (0)1 44 69 59 59
x.hirigoyen@le-pacte.com
SALES
ELLE DRIVER
Eva Diederix
Adeline Fontan Tessaur
Tel. +33 (0)1 56 43 48 70
sales@elledriver.eu
INTERNATIONAL PRESS
Martin Marquet
Tel. +1 310 927 5789
martin.marquet@me.com
CONTACT CANNES
LES FILMS DU TAMBOUR
Marie Legrand
Tel. +33 (0)6 32 43 91 85
marie@filmsdutambour.com
Why a « beauty salon » in Gaza?
This beauty salon, with the setting we have created, its colors and mirrors, represents our vision of Gaza: a little paradise in the middle of the terrible mayhem.
A « little paradise » displayed in a women’s indoor movie?
Women from the Gaza Strip are like any other women around the world, even though their sufferings are very specific ones. We need women in order to make changes in Gaza. They are our heroes because, despite the ongoing war, they stand for life. In the film, war rages outside the salon, but inside, they continue their conversations, their go on with their love stories. They want to stay beautiful in the hope of a date, of a marriage perspective… While gunshots go off in the street, putting lipstick on is a form of resistance: holding on to “one’s humanity” no matter the circumstances, keeping hope alive.
What was the background of the shooting?
At the beginning of our shooting, in 2014, a new war struck Gaza. The Israeli army killed thousands of civilians in three weeks’ time. At that point, we questioned our film topic which was conflicts among Palestinians, and that while our fellow citizens were being massacred. We eventually decided to stick to it, because talking about life itself was of utmost importance for us. Death being already covered by the medias, little do they care about people’s everyday life. We focused on internal conflicts between Palestinians, liberating ourselves from whatever was expected of us, Palestinian filmmakers. But our emancipation touches its limits, which are those of reality…
Interview by Annick Peigné-Giuly
