Opening Night Film
Screening at the Walker Art Center. To purchase tickets CLICK HERE.
Rabih (Barakat Jabbour), a young blind man, lives a quiet life in a small village in Lebanon where he sings in a choir and edits Braille documents. His life unravels when he applies for a passport and discovers that his identification card, which he has carried his entire life, is a forgery. Traveling across the countryside in search of a record of his birth, he meets people on the fringes of society who tell their own stories and offer him minor clues about his true identity. In trying to sort out who he is, Rabih finds it increasingly difficult to reconcile his personal experience, legal status, and family roots. His story mirrors the complex and conflicted situation of Lebanon itself, a nation often incapable of telling its own narrative.
Director’s Biography
Vatche Boulghourjian is a Lebanese filmmaker. He holds an MFA from New York University’s Graduate Film Program where he was a departmental fellow. Before attending NYU, Boulghourjian worked throughout the Middle East on documentaries for television while also making independent shorts, experimental films, and documentaries. Fifth Column (2010), his thesis film, and Tramontane, his first feature film, both premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.
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.
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