Set in a Lebanese village, Solitaire (Mahbas) uses humor to address the way regional tensions manifest in people’s personal lives. While Thérèse (Julia Kassar) joyfully prepares for the overnight visit of her daughter's suitor and his parents, she shares the happy news of engagement with her beloved brother. It just so happens that this brother was killed nearly twenty years earlier by a Syrian bomb, and Thérèse has blamed the entire country ever since. Only when the long-awaited guests are at her doorstep does Therese discover that they are Syrian, and after several outlandish attempts to break the engagment, it seems she’ll have to come to terms with the past.
Director Biography
Sophie Boutros earned a Bachelor in directing for television and film at the Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts, Lebanon. For six years, Boutros worked as a director on several television shows in Lebanon and Dubai. She has also directed numerous music videos. Solitaire (2016) is her first feature film.
Screening with Short Film:
The Parrot
Dir. Amjad Al-Rasheed and Darin Sallam
2016 | Jordan and Germany | Arabic, Yiddish, and Hebrew with English subtitles | 18 min | Minnesota Premiere
SYNOPSIS: A Mizrahi Jewish family from Tunisia settles into their new life and their new home in Haifa, Palestine in 1948. The house is lovely, but it contains the memories of its previous Arab residents and the pet they left behind: a large and chatty parrot.
DIRECTOR BIOGRAPHY: Darin Sallam has directed four award-winning short films including Still Alive and The Dark Outside, which screened at Cannes in 2010 and 2013, respectively.
Amjad Al-Rasheed is a Jordanian director and producer who attended the Berlinale Talent Campus in 2007. He has directed five award-winning short films as well as the Jordanian comedy series The Rania Show.
Sponsors
TWIN CITIES ARAB FILM FEST
Mizna's twelfth Twin Cities Arab Film Fest offers an eclectic program of compelling and provocative contemporary narrative, documentary, and short films made by Arab filmmakers from Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, Palestine, Tunisia, and more.
Browse Arab Film Fest