February 2012 - PriMed

WARSHEH

by Lucile GARCON

23 minutes, 2010

Production : Rami ZURAYK et Lucile GARCON / France

Every year, at the beginning of spring, Syrian buses go down the Euphrates valley on their way to the Lebanese border. Three years of consecutive drought have made the people of the Fertile Crescent hostile, many Syrians are thrown out on to the road with nothing to eat. Whole families cross the Anti-Lebanon mountains; the men find jobs in construction, either at Saïda or Beirut, the women and children work in the fields, bullied by the foremen and a boss who takes a percentage of their wages. Come the winter, some of these seasonal workers do not go back home, they spend years in make-shift potato-sack tents along the roads which lead to the famous archaeological site at Baalbeck. If, from the window of their car, tourists find the idea of a nomadic life charmingly archaic, the view from inside the camp shows archaism of a different sort, less romantic, more typical of modern refugee camps.

Lucile GARCON was born in Normandy in 1987. Having studied agronomy and anthropology in Paris, she set out with a camera for the Lebanon in September 2009. While working on research projects for the American University in Beirut, she wrote a few articles and made a documentary on the condition of agricultural workers on the Beqaa plain. She is currently working on a thesis on food . As a director she has made the following films: “Warsheh” (2010, 23 minutes); “Un hectare à Beyrouth” (2009, 5 minutes); “Le temps des cerises” (2008, 22 minutes).

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SAYDA

by Michael ABI KHALIL

18 minutes, 2010

Production : IESAV Institut d’études scéniques, audiovisuelles et cinématographiques / Lebanon

The documentary is about an atypical couple and the pressure they are under. Filipinno worker Lee-Zayda was employed at Majdi’s house, the relationship developed, now they are married. In their Lebanese village of Kahale, however, their neighbours are not models of tolerance.

Michael ABI KHALIL was born in Kahale, Lebanon, in 1988. He is a student at the Institute for Scenic and Audiovisual Studies at Saint-Joseph University, Beirut. “Sayda” (2010) is his first documentary.

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MOTHERS 15 CENTS A MINUTE

by Marina SERESESKY

28 minutes, 2011

Production : Teatro Meridional S.L. / Espagne

Is it possible to be a long-distance mother? Can one educate one’s child from a phone box? Women who go miles away to provide a better future for their children tell us how they live their roles as mother using a telephone or a computer .

Marina SERESESKY was born in 1969 in Buenos Aires (Argentina). She is an actress and director in both theatre and film. Her short film “El Cortejo” has been shown in several festivals, winning several awards. Currently she is working at the Teatro Meridional in Madrid as well as the Centro Dramatico Nacional.

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MY DREAM BIKE

by Serda YALIN

15 minutes, 2009

Production : TRT Kids (Turkish Radio & Television Corporation) / Turquie

Abdullah is 11 and lives with his parents and 11 brothers and sisters in Hasankeyf, a historic, and very tourist-orientated town in eastern Turkey. He is desperate to have his own bicycle but knows his parents cannot possibly afford to buy him one. How can he obtain the bike of his dreams? He decides to earn the necessary money himself. He assumes his responsibility by taking a major decision: he will become a tourist guide.

Serda YALIN was born in 1967 in Istanbul. She graduated in journalism and public relations in 1988 and the same year began to work for TRT. Since 1995 she has made television programmes for children and young people. In 1995 she won the Turkish Union of Journalists’ Prize with the TV series “Cakiltasi”. Her other TV programme for pre-school children, “Apple Worm”, is one of the finalists in the 2008 Japan Prize.

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LIBYA, THE WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION

by Marie-Laure WIDMER BAGGIOLINI

27 minutes, 2011

Production : RTS / Suisse

Latifa, Ghalia and Asma. Wage-earner, student and mother at home, each in her own way has contributed to the revolution against Gaddafi, by helping refugees, protesting or simply sweeping streets. With open arms they welcomed the reporters from “Temps Présent”, foreigners with whom they shared their first moments of freedom in Benghazi, the rebel-held town.

Having graduated in television studies at the University of Quebec at Montreal (Canada), Marie-Laure WIDMER BAGGIOLINI has worked regularly for Télévision Suisse Romande. In 1998 she travelled through the Balkans as far as Iran, via the southern Caucasus. She sent live TV and radio reports from an Albania in the throes of revolution and made several news films for TSR, later shown at the Geneva Festival of North-South Media. From the end of 1998 to the summer of 2002 she was based in Tehran and filed frequent reports to TSR. She has also been sent to Iraq and Afghanistan. At the end of 2003 she set up a production company, Papilles Prod, with Annick Jeanmairet. Together they created “Pique-Assiette”, a series of 6-minute cookery programmes which won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Gourmet Voices Festival in 2006. In 2006 as an independent she made a current affairs film for Channel 4 on Somali refugees ship-wrecked off the coast of Yemen – images later used by Daniel Grandclément in his film “Les Martyrs du Golfe d’Aden”. Her film won an award at the FIGRA
festival in 2008. Marie-Laure continues to make 52-minute documentaries for the TSR programme “Temps Présent”.

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WOLVES PLATE

de Mona IRAQI

30 minutes, 2011

Production : OTV Channel / Egypte

According to Egyptian law, dangerous waste material from hospitals must be burnt within the hospital itself, but in reality rubbish collectors steal most of it and recycle the items as new. Often these rubbish collectors are contaminated by the Hepatitis C virus – which is why Egypt has the fastest rate of increase in this virus in the world.

Mona IRAQI is an Egyptian investigative journalist. She began as a reporter for Sudanese television. In 2010 she produced and made her first documentary “Somalia, The Land of Evil Spirits”. “Wolves Plate”, her first investigative film, has won several awards, in particular the ARIJ Award for Investigative Journalism. She works currently for the Egyptian satellite channels (OTV Egypt, Alhayat).

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TUNISIA, THE SHIPWRECKED OF THE REVOLUTION

by Alexandra DENIAU, François RENAUT and Christophe KENCK

45 minutes, 2011

Production : France Télévisions – France 2 Envoyé Spécial / France

Thousands of Tunisians emigrating secretly to Europe, hundreds of thousands fleeing the war in Libya. Should Europe dread this massive influx of illegal immigrants? Log book in France and Tunisia on board one of the overloaded boats trying to reach the Italian island of Lampedusa. Why are Tunisians fleeing their country? After 23 years of dictatorship why don’t they believe in the future of their revolution?

Alexandra DENIAU was born in 1975. She got her Masters in Information and Communication Studies in 1998. Since 1999 she has worked for television: Arte Info, Canal Plus and i-Télé, Capa and since September 2008 she has been a reporter on France 2’s “Envoyé Spécial”.
François RENAUT is a journalist and cameraman. Having studied Letters and journalism, he worked for several television channels as a journalist/photographer. Since 2010 he has worked for France2 and Canal Plus’ programme “Dimanche Plus”
Christophe KENCK is a journalist and cameraman. He has worked for several French television channels. Since January 2008 he has worked particularly for France 2 on news programmes, “Compléments d’Enquête”, “Envoyé Spécial” and “Stade 2”.

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THE LAST BREATH

by Sameh MOUSSA

52 minutes, 2011

Production : 25TV / Egypte

A few years ago the Egyptian president, Hosni Moubarak declared he would serve his country until his dying breath. This documentary is about the last thirty years of tyranny in Egypt, and how the Egyptians have managed to pull themselves out of it.

Sameh MOUSSA is a musician and director. He works as a guitarist, composer, director and radio producer. These are some of his films: “Shisha” (1994); “Beni Sueif Dream” (2000); “Operation Trash” (2001); “Lamma Bada” (2010); “Zaar” (2010); “The Last Breath” (2011); “Dumafkat” (2011).

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THE IMAMS GO TO SCHOOL

de Kaouther BEN HANIA

75 minutes, 2010

Production : Who’Z Prod, 03 Productions / France

They are apprentice imams at France’s biggest mosque, but now they have to learn secularism as well, to conform with the French state policy of modernising Islam. Of all the universities approached, only one volunteered to run such a course: the Catholic Institute of Paris. So, for the first time in the republic, in addition to their usual curriculum French student imams will be given a year’s training in secularism by Catholics.

Having done business studies, followed by training as a film-maker at the School of Arts and Cinema in Tunis, Kaouther BEN HANIA went to the Femis summer school in 2004 where she made her first documentary. In 2005 she did a continuing education course in script writing, also at the Femis. In 2006 she made “Moi, ma soeur et la chose”, a short film shown at many festivals. From 2006 to 2007 she worked for the Al Jazeera Documentary Channel at Qatar.

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KADHAFI, OUR BEST ENEMY

by Antoine VITKINE

95 minutes, 2011

Production : Illégitime Défense, Les Films du Cabestan, avec la participation de France Télévisions, Planète, TV5 Monde / France

At the very moment when the long reign of Muammar Gaddafi is being undermined, this new documentary by director Antoine Vitkine shows some of the different deals the West has done with the Libyan leader over the years, for realpolitik, oil or terrorism. How has this godfather of international terrorism, the world’s enemy number one in the 1980’s, become rehabilitated? How has one of the most brutal dictators, a pariah placed under UN embargo after the Lockerbie bombings and the destruction of UTA’s DC10, managed, ten years later, to rub shoulders with European and American heads of state in Tripoli, Paris or New York? Interviewing some of the most important players, such as Tony Blair and Condoleeza Rice, this film looks back at forty years of relationship between the West and Gaddafi. It shows how Gaddafi used the greatest powers, but also how they used their “best enemy”.

Born in 1977, Antoine VITKINE graduated in Political Science and International Relations at IEP (Paris). He also has a doctorate at the Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Internationales. As a journalist he has made a series of interviews for INA “Mémoires de la Shoah” (2005-6). For television he has made “Mein Kampf, C’était Ecrit” (2008, 55 minutes), and “Les Esclaves Oubliés” (2008, 52 minutes) for Arte; for the French channel 13ème Rue Universal he has made “Tchernobyl, Un Mensonge à la Française” (2002, 26 minutes) and “Le Syndrome de Stockholm, Otages Sous Influence”(2005, 26 minutes).