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Newsletter July/August 2018

1. New!!! ERASED,___ASCENT OF THE INVISIBLE – World Premiere in Locarno
2. COUNTING TILES in Mexiko
3. PANOPTIC in Mexiko and Australia
4. AND ON A DIFFERENT NOTE in London
5. About mec film summer office hours and new newsletter
6. VOD of the month: AND ON A DIFFERENT NOTE
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1. New!!! ERASED,___ASCENT OF THE INVISIBLE – World Premiere in Locarno

mec film is very happy to have Ghassan Halwani’s feature length essay-documentary EARASED,___ASCENT OF THE INVISIBLE added to its international distribution and sales catalogue. The film will celebrate the World Premiere at 71 Locarno Festival in the section Signs of Life on August 6th, 2018.

Content
Thirty-five years ago, I witnessed the kidnapping of a man I know.
He has disappeared since.
Ten years ago, I caught a glimpse of his face while walking in the street, but I wasn’t sure it was him.
Parts of his face were torn off, but his features had remained unchanged since the incident. Yet something was different, as if he wasn’t the same man.
essay-documentary, Lebanon 2018, color and black & white, 76 min, Arabic and English with English subtitles

screenings in Locarno
Premiere: Monday, August 6 - 21:30 - Teatro Kursaal (presentation at the beginning and Q&A with the audience after the film)
Repetition 1: Tuesday, August 7 - 11:30 - L’altra Sala
Repetition 2: Wednesday, August 8 - 19:00 - PalaCinema Leopard
more
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2. COUNTING TILES in Mexico

Cynthia Choucair’s COUNTING TILES was shown at the Lebanese Focus of Guanajuato International Film Festival in Mexico. The festival took place from July 20th till 29th 2018 in the cities of San Miguel de Allende and Capital Guanajuato.

Content
In February 2016, a group of clowns travel to the Greek island of Lesvos on a mission to bring laughter to the waves of refugees crossing the sea to escape from war and enter Europe. Unwittingly, the clowns find themselves greeted with closed gates witnessing the effects of new policies enacted by the European Union towards the refugees.
Cynthia, the sister of one of the clowns, joins them on their journey which slowly becomes a reflection on the sisters’ own tale of displacement during the Lebanese civil war.
Moments of humor and joyful laughter bring the clowns back to their original mission, ironically playing with reality to a point where the lines between their clown personalities and their real selves are blurred.
documentary, Cynthia Choucair, Lebanon 2018, 87 min, Arabic with Engl. ST
more
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3. PANOPTIC in Mexico and Australia

Rana Eid’s documentary film was was shown at the Lebanese Focus of Guanajuato International Film Festival in Mexico, which took place from July 20th till 29th 2018. At the end of August it will be presented at the Lebanese Film Festival in Sydney/Australia.

Content
Panoptic is a letter from a daughter to her deceased father in an attempt to reconcile with her country’s turbulent past.
Panoptic delves into Beirut’s underground to explore Lebanon’s schizophrenia: a nation that thrives for modernity while ironically ignoring the vices that obstruct achieving this modernity.
While the Lebanese population has chosen to turn a blind eye to these vices, Rana Eid, an ordinary citizen, explores the nation’s paradoxes through sound, iconic monuments and secret hidings.
documentary, Rana Eid, Lebanon 2017, 69 min, Arabic with Engl. or French ST
more
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4. AND ON A DIFFERENT NOTE in London

Mohammad Shawky Hassan’s experimental short film is showing at the Mosaic Rooms in London on August 2nd, 2018 in the framework of the program "What do you mean, Here we are? Townhouse, Cairo 1998–2018".

Content
A text-image montage with empty apartments, lonely rooms, of views from windows and street scenes in New York and Cairo. In the background: an uninterrupted soundtrack of news and talk shows. Self-proclaimed pundits make their appearance, want to be heard.
short film, Egypt 2015, 24 mins, Color, Arabic/ English with English/Arabic Subtitles
more
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5. About mec film summer office hours and new newsletter

In August the mec film office is not open on a regular basis. Emails will be collected every third day latest.

From now on the monthly newsletter is sent from a new newsletter provider. If your email address is in our system you receive the newsletter as usual. In addition you can un/subscribe also on our website.
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6. VOD of the month: AND ON A DIFFERENT NOTE

A text-image montage with empty apartments, lonely rooms, of views from windows and street scenes in New York and Cairo. In the background: an uninterrupted soundtrack of news and talk shows. Self-proclaimed pundits make their appearance, want to be heard.

The director about the film
Today in this house nothing happens, nor does it in the homes of others. Time and place stand on parallel lines, refuting the coordinates of existence. The chronology of events is obscured, subversive noise is obliterated, elucidation impossible and language futile. All that remains is a soundscape perpetually occupied by self-proclaimed patriots, and scattered spaces carved by the rhythm of everyday life, all conspiring to maintain the status quo while hiding the humming background noise of the world.
And on a Different Note is a navigation of an attempt to carve out a personal space amid an inescapable sonic shield created primarily by prime time political talk shows with their indistinguishable, absurd, and at times undecipherable rhetoric/ noises. Equally repulsive and addictive, these noises travel across geographies gradually constituting an integral part of a self-created map of exile.
(Mohammad Shawky Hassan)

watch the film online
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