French sales agent Stray Dogs has picked up international rights to Syrian director Soudade Kaadan’s fiction feature debut The Day I Lost My Shadow.

A co-production between KAF Production, France’s Acrobates Film and Qatar’s Metafora, the film has its world premiere in the Horizons section at Venice Film Festival on Sunday September 2. It will then go on to screen at Toronto Film Festival, and has just been announced for the first feature competition at BFI London Film Festival in October.

Stray Dogs will be conducting sales at both Venice and Toronto.

The film was shot on the Lebanon-Syria border in spring 2017, and predominantly employed Syrians – including many refugees – as crew and actors.

It is set in war-torn Syria in 2012, and follows mother Sana during the coldest winter the country has experienced. When searching for a gas canister to cook a warm meal for her son, Sana finds herself stuck in the besieged area. She then discovers that people lose their shadows during the war.

Soudade’s sister Amira produces the film, for the pair’s production company KAF. Formed in 2008, the company has previously produced titles including Soudade’s 2017 doc Obscure, which played at CPH:DOX.