All films are subtitled in English
Day 1
Documentary Selection Vancouver 2022
Friday, Sep 23, 2022 – 5:30 pm
THE BLUE INMATES
(By Zeina Daccache)
This is the 3rd documentary by Zeina Daccache produced and shot in Lebanese Prisons (her previous internationally awarded films lobbied and made changes to the Lebanese penal code articles). The current film follows inmates in Roumieh Prison (Lebanon) who produced a theatre play inside prison about their fellow inmates suffering from mental illness and residing in the same Prison. Unfortunately the Lebanese Penal Code, enacted in 1943, stipulates that “Insane”, “Mad” or “Possessed” offenders shall be incarcerated in a special psychiatry unit until evidence of “being cured”, however mental illness is managed and never cured… Therefore mentally ill offenders are practically receiving a life sentence…
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Day 1
Friday, Sep 23, 2022 – 7:30 pm
C-Section
(By David Oryan)
Centered on two couples from extremely different social & financial background, unwillingly meet in the same hospital’s maternity room after delivery, where the rising actions goes completely out of control and unpredictably thrilling second by second.
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Day 2
Saturday, Sep 24, 2022 – 6:30 pm – Red Carpet event
BROKEN KEYS
(By Jimmy Keyrouz)
(Cannes 2020 Official Selection, Lebanese entry for the Oscar for Best International Feature and Best Original Score)
2013, in a war-torn village in Syria. Karim, a musician, needs to sell his most precious possession to leave Syria and only has thirteen days to do it. As he wraps the instrument, a terrorist leader bursts into the apartment and destroys it. Karim enlists the help of a young boy named Ziad to whom he promises money, to help find the parts he needs in order to rebuild his piano. After several failed attempts, Ziad tells Karim about a grand piano located in a dangerous distant city named Ramza that was owned by family friends. It’s a suicide mission but Karim has to take this chance.
COMPOSER: Gabriel Yared (The English Patient – Oscar for Best Original Score, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Cold Mountain)
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Day 3
Sunday, Sep 25, 2022 – 1 pm
THE PROPHET
(By Roger Allers)
Exiled artist and poet Mustafa embarks on a journey home with his housekeeper and her daughter. Together, the trio must evade the authorities who fear that the truth in Mustafa’s words will incite rebellion.
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Day 3
Sunday, Sep 25, 2022 – 4 pm
MEMORY BOX
(By: Joanna Hadjithomas)
On Christmas Eve, a mother and daughter in Montreal receive an unexpected delivery: notebooks, tapes, and photos from 1980s Beirut, Lebanon. While the mother refuses to open the box, her daughter dives into the memories of her mother’s adolescence.
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Day 3
Sunday, Sep 25, 2022 – 7:30 pm
BEIRUT HOLD'EM
(By Michel Kammoun)
Beirut Hold’em depicts the life of Ziko, a 40-year old ex-con and petty gambler, and his three boyhood friends, in a seedy, lower-middle class district of Beirut. Released from prison, Ziko wants to restart his life. With his back against the wall, Ziko faces all the challenges in one go. But everyone knows that, once a gambler, always a gambler. But Ziko’s biggest fight turns out to be his inner struggle. Driven by a never-ending determination and a relentless will to survive, he sets out on his journey through contemporary post-war Lebanese society, a place made of an incongruous mixture of violence and tenderness, a country on the edge of war and bankruptcy, where instability makes everyday life feel like a circus trapeze, and sheer existence is yet another form of gambling.
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