Babylon celebrates the successful conclusion of its eighth edition this month with the festival début of Mai Masri’s much anticipated film 3000 Nights, which had its World Première last month at Toronto International Film Festival as part of the Contemporary World Cinema selection. The film, starring Maisa Abdelhadi and Nadera Omranwhich, has also been selected for Busan and for this month’s BFI London Film Festival’s First Feature Competition. The film screens at LFF on 15th and 18th October Screening times and tickets here.
Mai first participated in Babylon 2009, continuing to develop the project over a number of years, including participation at the Cannes Atelier and further script consultancy sessions with Gareth Jones last year. She already has an impressive reputation as a documentary filmmaker focusing on Palestinian themes, and her first narrative feature is generating much excitement. Read about it on Indiewire.
3000 Nights tells the story of Layal, a Palestinian schoolteacher who is arrested and incarcerated in an Israeli prison where she gives birth to a baby boy, learning to survive emotionally and rebuild her life behind bars. It was co-produced by Nour Productions, Les Films d’Ici, Orjouane Productions and Phillistine Films, and funded by CNC-Aide aux Cinemas du Monde (France), Jordan Film Fund (RFC – Jordan), Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (France) and AFAC (Lebanon).
Meanwhile this month sees the concluding sessions for our 2015 Babylon participants, taking place in London and Vienna, following earlier workshops in Vienna and Cannes. Congratulations to everyone involved for their hard work and huge forward strides on their projects.
Tal Haring and Efrat Cohen, with Babylon’s first Israeli project, absurdist black comedy Kids and Kings set in contemporary Tel Aviv, have been selected to Film London’s Micromarket, one of only 8 international projects taking part out of 23 projects, see Screen Daily: Micromarket Selected Projects.
Co-writing duo Vika Evdokimenko and Oliver Shuster scooped up two prizes for their ground-breaking first feature script The Place Behind Her Eyes, which won Best Graduate Feature Screenplay at this year’s Fusion Film Festival and was a winner of the NYU Purple List 2015.
Baden-Württemberg funded Peter Evers with his screenplay Niemandsland and Vienna backed XOXO by Johanna Lietha and Iliana Estanol have both found producers during their participation with the programme. XOXO is currently in casting and early rehearsals in Vienna.
Thanks to the generosity of our core funder Filmfonds Wien, Babylon is proud to have welcomed Vienna-based Syrian filmmaker Alfouz Tanjour with his feature Wooden Rifle, confirming Babylon’s eight-year mission to advance films of migration and double culture.
Babylon’s Greek participant Stratis Chatzielenoudas was accepted at the 2015 Cross Channel Film Lab and at 2015 Sarajevo Talents with his project Haunted by City Lights; British writer-director and WFTV mentee Christiana Ebohon completed three drafts of her feature film Sheba alongside her BBC television directing work; Vienna based singer-actress-screenwriter Sonja Romei developed Die Diebin alongside her theatre appearances; and MFG-funded Carsten Unger continued his historical blockbuster The Tear of Eve alongside his prolific, award-winning work as writer-director.
We look forward to seeing more Babylon-backed films on screen soon!
