MAD Options Buys Trio of Cannes and Venice Titles for Arab Area

Cairo-based movie advertising and distribution outfit MAD Options has acquired rights for Arab territories to a few movies that celebrated their premieres this 12 months on the Cannes and Venice movie festivals.

The offers embody Fyzal Boulifa’s “The Damned Don’t Cry,” which bowed within the Venice Days sidebar on the Italian fest and can have its Center East and North Africa premiere at Marrakech earlier than touring to Saudi Arabia’s Purple Sea Movie Pageant. Additionally acquired was Rachid Hami’s “For My Nation,” a Venice Horizons choice that can have its regional premiere on the Cairo Movie Pageant.

The corporate additionally picked up the rights to Clément Cogitore’s “Sons of Ramses,” which had its world premiere within the Cannes Movie Pageant’s Critics’ Week strand.

“We’re delighted to have acquired the distribution rights to a few artistically distinguished movies in 2022, which is taken into account the climax of our efforts in distributing greater than 50 movies — whether or not they’re French productions or co-produced with France — with a view to accomplish MAD Options’ purpose of making new markets for Arab movies internationally and vice versa,” stated Alaa Karkouti and Maher Diab, the corporate’s co-founders.

“The Damned Don’t Cry” (pictured, high), which is British-Moroccan filmmaker Boulifa’s sophomore function, tells the story of an itinerant mom and her adolescent son, who’re each pulled into completely different types of intercourse work as they hit the highway looking for better stability and alternative.

Selection’s Man Lodge described the “refined, strikingly queer mother-son melodrama” as a “haunting, peculiar and sometimes expressly queer story of social isolation and outsider survival,” one for which “pageant bookings and specialist distribution throughout a number of territories [are] certain to comply with” after the movie’s double-billing on the Lido and in the principle competitors on the London Movie Pageant.

Hami’s “For My Nation” is a private story based mostly on the lifetime of the Algerian filmmaker, whose brother tragically died in a French army faculty throughout a hazing ceremony. The movie tells the story of Aissa, a superb younger officer of Algerian origin who dies throughout a more energizing initiation ritual on the prestigious French army academy of Saint-Cyr.

Refusing to take accountability for his dying, the French military insists to have Aissa buried within the Muslim plot of a suburban cemetery as an alternative of the army one. Appalled by the apparent discrimination, Aissa’s older brother, Ismael, brings the household collectively to reclaim justice for Aissa.

Cogitore’s “Sons of Ramses” follows Ramses, a skillful clairvoyant within the multicultural Parisian district of La Goutte d’Or. When a gang of fearless youngsters begin terrorizing the locals, the stability of his thriving enterprise and of the entire neighborhood is disturbed. Till in the future, when Ramses has an actual imaginative and prescient.

With its newest acquisitions, MAD Options has secured distribution rights to seven movies that featured in Venice this 12 months, together with Wissam Charaf’s Venice Days prize winner “Soiled, Troublesome, Harmful” and Soudade Kaadan’s “Nezouh,” which scooped a pair of awards within the Horizons Additional sidebar. The corporate additionally just lately acquired Roschdy Zem’s competitors entry “Our Ties,” which can have its Center East premiere on the Cairo Movie Pageant.

Two of the corporate’s forthcoming function tasks additionally participated in Closing Reduce in Venice, a workshop supporting movies in post-production from African and Arab international locations. They’re “Inshallah a Boy,” by Amjad Al-Rasheed, which secured 4 awards on the workshop and can participate on this week’s Cairo Movie Connection, and Karim Bensalah’s “Black Mild,” which gained a number of post-production awards.

MAD Options has labored on over 50 Arab-French co-productions and French movies, together with Erige Sehiri’s “Beneath the Fig Timber,” which gained the EcoProd Jury Award in Cannes’ Administrators’ Fortnight strand this 12 months, Ely Dagher’s “The Sea Forward,” Mehdi Hmili’s “Streams,” Leyla Bouzid’s “A Story of Love and Want,” Mohamed Ben Attia’s “Pricey Son,” Salah Issaad’s “Soula,” Narjiss Nejjar’s “Stateless,” Mats Grorud’s animation “The Tower” and Gaya Jiji’s “My Favourite Material.”