EXCLUSIVE: Dubai-based Mad World has acquired worldwide sales rights to Muayad Alayan’s Venice and Toronto title Conversation With The Sea.
Set in Jerusalem, the film follows a 60-year-old Palestinian man who receives an Israeli court order demanding a social security debt payment in the name of his late son, who supposedly drowned two decades earlier. When no official record of his son’s death can be found, the man embarks on a painful journey to discover what really happened.
The film stars Kamel El Basha, Amer Hlehel, Ruba Blal, Haitham Omari, Bahira Ablassi, Maria Zreik and Rebecca Esmeralda Telhami. It is written and produced by brothers Rami and Muayad Alayan and co-produced by Hanneke Niens, founder of Dutch producer KeyFilm, which co-produces with Palestine’s PalCine Productions and Qatari company Metafora Production.
Backers on the film include the Hubert Bals Fund and Netherlands Film Fund, Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Fund and Qatar’s Doha Film Institute.
The film marks the fourth collaboration between Mad and the Alayan brothers following their previous films Love, Theft And Other Entanglements, The Reports On Sarah And Saleem and A House In Jerusalem.
“Conversation With The Sea is another remarkable example of Muayad’s ability to tell deeply human stories with universal resonance,” said a statement from Mad Solutions co-founders Alaa Karkouti and Maher Diab.
The film will play in the Spotlight section at Venice before its North American premiere as a Centrepiece title at Toronto.
No comments yet