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PRODUCTION / FUNDING France

Chloé Mazlo shooting Skies of Lebanon

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- Alba Rohrwacher and Wajdi Mouawad are leading the cast of this first feature film, a Moby Dick Films production sold by Charades and directed by the 2015 Cesar Award-winning director

Chloé Mazlo shooting Skies of Lebanon
Director Chloé Mazlo, actress Alba Rohrwacher and actor Wajdi Mouawad

Monday 18 November saw Chloé Mazlo begin filming on her first full-length work: Skies of Lebanon [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
. Highly acclaimed for her short films, in particular the animated documentaries Deyrouth (selected in over 60 festivals across 2010-2011) and The Little Stones (2015 César for Best Animated Short), the filmmaker will this time be working on a fiction feature, traversed by animated, oneiric interludes.

Standing tall at the head of the cast is Italian actress Alba Rohrwacher (the winner of the Volpi Cup Best Actress award in Venice 2014 for Hungry Hearts [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Saverio Costanzo
film profile
]
; nominated for the David di Donatello Best Actress award four times, including this year for Lucia’s Grace [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, having already taken the trophy home in 2009 thanks to Giovanna’s Father; well received in If Only [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
at the Locarno FF this summer and whom we’ll be seeing next year in Nanni Moretti’s Tre piani [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
) alongside the multi-award-winning Lebanese-Quebecer playwright and director Wajdi Mouawad (the notable author of the play Incendies), whose only other fiction film appearance to date is that in Still Burning (2016).

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Written by Chloé Mazlo and Yacine Badday, the story begins in the 1950s. Young Alice leaves her Swiss homeland for Lebanon, a sunny and exuberant country where she enjoys the best years of her life. From dolce vita to disillusion, war winds its way into Alice’s paradise and she will do her best to protect herself from the inevitable, refusing to give in to despair… The story stretches into the mid-1970s, up to the dawn of the Civil War.

Produced by Frédéric Niedermayer on behalf of Moby Dick Films, Skies of Lebanon is co-produced by Arte France Cinéma. It has been pre-purchased by Arte, Canal+ and Ciné+, and benefits from an advance on earnings from the CNC and the support of the SOFICA companies Indéfilms and Cinémage. Developed as part of the Groupe Ouest Film Lab 2016 Selection and the 2017 Talents event (co-steered by the Gan Film Foundation), the feature film will enjoy 36 days of shooting - lasting until 24 January (with a break towards the end of the year) – unfolding in Paris, in the Paris region (notably in a studio in Bry-sur-Marne) and in Cyprus (over the course of a few days). Cinematography is in the hands of Hélène Louvart (nominated for a David di Donatello award in her category this year for Happy As Lazzaro [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alice Rohrwacher
film profile
]
, likewise recently acclaimed for her work on Rocks [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Sarah Gavron
film profile
]
, The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Karim Aïnouz
film profile
]
, Petra [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jaime Rosales
film profile
]
, The Intruder, etc.) who is shooting on film reel, in Super 16. Distribution in France will be headed up by Ad Vitam and international sales by Charades.

For the record, Moby Dick Films is also throwing its weight behind Love Affair(s) [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Emmanuel Mouret
film profile
]
- which is now wrapping filming - by Emmanuel Mouret, a filmmaker whose ten feature films have been produced by the Paris-based company (including the recent Mademoiselle de Joncquières [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Emmanuel Mouret
film profile
]
), as have A Paris Education [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jean-Paul Civeyrac
film profile
]
by Jean Paul Civeyrac and Margaux Hartmann [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ludovic Bergery
film profile
]
by Ludovic Bergery, amongst others.

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(Translated from French)

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