The Three Cultures of the Mediterranean Foundation resumes its collaboration with the Seville European Film Festival
The aim of this collaboration is to show recent works by directors from the Middle East and North Africa and Europeans from this region. Thus, as part of the Seville European Film Festival, the following films will be screened Bloody Beans by the French-Algerian director Narimane Mari; Silvered Water, Syria Self-Portrait by Syrians Ossama Mohammed and Wiam Simav Bedirxan; and The Kindergarten Teacher by Israel's Nadav Lapid.
In addition, coinciding with this edition of the festival, Tres Culturas will dedicate the 'Tuesday Film' programme in November to European directors from the Middle East and North Africa, showing a growing trend in recent years that combines an increasing number of creators from this region born in Europe or exiled there and the growing European participation, especially French, in the financing of these productions.
Despite being a prolific and quality production, these films continue to find it difficult to be distributed in European cinemas, being screened at best only in a few specialised festivals. It is a pleasure to be able to offer a representative sample of this type of cinema, a purpose we share with the Seville European Film Festival.
Omar
Hany Abu-Assad (Palestine, 2013, 96 min.)
Tuesday, 11 November. 8.30 p.m.
Free admission until full capacity is reached.
Synopsis.
Omar is a Palestinian baker for whom crossing the separation wall to visit his girlfriend has become routine. Every night he risks his life in the face of Israeli soldiers until, together with two childhood friends, he is arrested and accused of the murder of a soldier. Coerced into becoming an informer, he begins a dangerous game whose end is uncertain: will he betray his people or the agent controlling him?
- Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival (2013).
- Nominated for Best Foreign Film (Palestine) at the Oscar Awards (2014).
- Best Film and Best Director at the Dubai International Film Festival.
- Winner of the Norwegian Peace Film Award at the Thomsø International Film Festival (2014).
The filmography that Hany Abu-Assad (1961) has centred on Palestine, with titles such as Omar (2013), Paradise Now (2005) y Rana's wedding (2002), has managed to interest both the general public and the critics, receiving prestigious international awards such as the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival for Omar or the Golden Globe for Paradise Now. In 2014, the Academy of Motion Pictures invited Abu-Assad, a Palestinian born in Nazareth (Israel) and emigrated to Norway, to be one of its members.