'Gaza Mon Amour' recently won the NETPAC award at the 45th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and received critical acclaim at the Venice International Film Festival.
Palestinian feature film Gaza Mon Amour, directed by twin brothers Tarzan and Arab Nasser, will make its Arab world premiere in the International Competition of the 42nd Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF). The festival is scheduled to take place from December 2 to 10.
Gaza Mon Amour recently won the NETPAC award at the 45th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). The film also received wide critical acclaim as well as a five-minute standing ovation after its screening at the Venice International Film Festival. It is the only Arab film that got selected at both festivals this year.
The film is set in Gaza and follows a sixty-year-old fisherman Issa, who is secretly in love with Siham, a woman who works as a dressmaker at the market. Finally determined to propose, Issa discovers an ancient statue of Apollo in his fishing net, which he decides to hide at home. When local authorities discover the existence of this mysterious treasure, troubles start for Issa.
Gaza Mon Amour features an all-star cast, including Salim Daw, Hiam Abbass, Maisa Abdelhadi, Georges Iskandar, Hitham Al Omari, and Manal Awad. The film was officially selected at the 2019 Berlinale Co-Production Market.
The film is produced by the French company Les Films du Tambour (delegate producer), in a France-Germany-Portugal-Palestine-Qatar co-production with Riva Filmproduktion (Germany), ZDF/Das kleine Fernsehspiel in collaboration with ARTE (Germany), Ukbar Filmes (Portugal), Made in Palestine Project (Palestine), and Jordan Pioneers. MAD Solutions handles the film’s distribution in the Arab world.
The film received the support of Eurimages, Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée (CNCI), Filmförderungsanstalt, Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein, L’Aide aux Cinémas du Monde – Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée – Institut Français, and co-production grants for Franco-Portuguese Films from the Instituto do Cinema e do Audiovisual, RTP – Rádio e Televisão de Portugal, and the Doha Film Institute, in association with Versatile, Dulac Distribution, and Alamode Film.
