LEBANON/ FRANCE/ QATAR/ UAE
2016 – 1H45 – IN ARABIC
WORLD PREMIERE
Synopsis
Rabih, a young blind man, lives in a small village in Lebanon. His life unravels when he applies for a passport and discovers that his identification card is a forgery. Traveling across rural Lebanon in search of a record of his own birth, he meets people on the far fringes of society who tell their own stories, open further questions and give him minor clues about his identity. He encounters a nation incapable of telling his, or its own, history.
Extract
DIRECTOR: Vatche Boulghourjian
PRODUCTION: Georges Schoucair - Caroline Oliveira - Gabrielle Dumon
SCENARIO: Vatche Boulghourjian
CINEMATOGRAPHY: James Lee Phelan
EDITING: Nadia Ben Rachid
SOUND: Rana Eid - Julien Perez
PRODUCTION DESIGN: Nadine Ghanem
MUSIC: Cynthia Zaven
CAST:
Barakat Jabbour
Julia Kassar
Michel Adabashi
Toufic Barakat
PRODUCTION
ABBOUT PRODUCTIONS
Myriam Sassine
Tel. +961 1 587 824
myriam@abboutproductions.com
CO-PRODUCTION
LE BUREAU FILMS
Gabrielle Dumon
Tel. +33 (0)1 40 33 33 83
gd@lebureaufilms.com
REBUS FILM
Caroline Oliveira
carolineoliveira@me.com
DISTRIBUTION
AD VITAM DISTRIBUTION
Gregory Gajos Alexandra Henochsberg
Tel. + 33 (0)1 55 28 97 00
contact@advitamdistribution.com
SALES
THE BUREAU SALES
Rym Hachimi
Tel. +33 (0)1 40 33 33 86
rh@lebureaufilms.com
PRESSE FRANÇAISE
Matilde Incerti
Jérémie Charrier
Tel . +33 (0)1 48 05 20 80
Tel. +33 (0)6 08 78 76 60
matilde.incerti@free.fr
INTERNATIONALE PRESS
ALIBI COMMUNICATIONS
Brigitta Portier
Tel. +32 477 98 25 84
brigittaportier@alibicommunications.be
MIDDLE EAST PRESS
Zeina Sfeir
Tel. +33 (0)6 30 91 91 95
zeinasfeir@gmail.com
CONTACT CANNES
THE BUREAU SALES
Rym Hachimi
Tel. +33 (0)6 99 52 79 51
rh@lebureaufilms.com
Emmanuelle Le Courtois
Tel. +33 (0)6 68 11 41 00
elc@lebureaufilms.com
“This film is the natural outcome of living in Lebanon, being sensitive to its daily realities, and harbouring a profound concern and love for its people and culture. Rabih’s journey to find the truth about his origins requires him to retrace specific events from the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990).
Instead of the facts, he needs to solve his own enigma. Rabih is told myths, visions, and outright lies; none of the people he meets can tell the truth. This is a phenomenon that has become common since the end of the war: to protect or exonerate oneself, the past is fabricated, distorted or altogether concealed. To this day, not a single official narrative of the war exists; each community is left to devise and teach its own narrative of the war, thus entrenching past enmities in future generations.
By all accounts, the war did not end; it just took another shape. As multiple narratives have taken root to describe the same event, a crisis of narrative has fragmented Lebanon. This has exacerbated an already volatile situation where even basic facts are in dispute. By following Rabih’s crisis, Tramontane looks inward at a country that cannot face its own history.
My goal was to make a film that encourages critical dialogue and furthers our understanding of ourselves in the wake of circumstantial forces that are shaping borders and lives. I was fortunate to have a production team who shared the passion and desire to tell this story, namely Georges Schoucair of Abbout Productions. The subject matter also resonated with my producers who are not from Lebanon – Caroline Oliveira and Gabrielle Dumon of Le Bureau – who strongly believed in the ubiquity of the narrative. We made this film because we wanted to see this film ourselves, because we felt its urgency and humanity.”
Interview by Ava Cahen
