Memory Box: un candidato all'Orso d’Oro per Playtime

di Fabien Lemercier

17/02/2021 - Coprodotto da Francia, Libano e Canada, il film di Joana Hadjithomas e Khalil Joreige brilla come punta di diamante della prestigiosa line-up del venditore francese

Memory Box: un candidato all'Orso d’Oro per Playtime

Memory Box di Joana Hadjithomas e Khalil Joreige

Questo articolo è disponibile in inglese.

After 2019’s By the Grace of God [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
Q&A: François Ozon
scheda film] and Irradiated [+leggi anche:
recensione
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intervista: Rithy Panh
scheda film] which was released last year, the French international sales agent Playtime will once again see a title from its line-up competing in the Berlin Film Festival, in the form of Memory Box [+leggi anche:
recensione
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intervista: Joana Hadjithomas, Khalil …
scheda film] by Lebanese directors Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige. The group will also get the chance to work on a great many highly appealing, future secret weapons at the European Film Market (running 1-5 March) unfolding within the German festival’s 71st edition.

(L'articolo continua qui sotto - Inf. pubblicitaria)

Memory Box is the 5th feature film to come courtesy of the filmmaking duo, following on from Around the Pink House (1999), A Perfect Day [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] (which battled it out for the FIPRESCI Prize in Locarno’s 2005 competition), Je veux voir [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] (unveiled in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section in 2008) and The Lebanese Rocket Society [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Khalil Joreige
scheda film] (discovered in Toronto’s Wavelengths programme in 2012).

Starring Rim Turkhi (Bab el shams - The Gate of Sun), Manal Issa (nominated for the Acting Revelation Lumières award in 2017 via Parisienne [+leggi anche:
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scheda film]; also well-received in Nocturama [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Bertrand Bonello
scheda film], among other works) and Paloma Vauthier (glimpsed in Zombi Child [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Bertrand Bonello
scheda film]), the film was written by the two directors together with Gaëlle Macé (nominated for the 2015 Best Screenplay Lumières for Elle l’adore [+leggi anche:
trailer
scheda film], and whose body of work also boasts Belle épine [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] and Grand Central [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Rebecca Zlotowski
scheda film]).

Memory Box kicks off in Montreal, on Christmas Day, when Maia and her daughter Alex receive a mysterious package containing notebooks, tapes and photos: a raft of correspondence which Maia had sent, between the ages of 13 and 18, to her best friend who had fled to Paris to escape the civil war in Beirut. Maia refuses to open the box or face up to its memories, but Alex secretly dives into it. Between fantasy and reality, Alex enters the world of her mother’s tumultuous, passionate adolescence during the Lebanese civil war, unlocking mysteries of a hidden past…

Memory Box was produced by France at a level of 59.1% via Haut et Court (Carole Scotta and Barbara Letellier) who will steer distribution in France, in co-production with Lebanon (Georges Schoucair and Christian Eid for Abbout Productions) and Canada (micro_scope). Notably supported by the CNC in the form of an advance on receipts and a subsidy for new technologies in production, and further backed by the French-Canadian mini-treaty, Sodec, TV5 Monde and the SOFICA company La Banque Postale Image, the feature film benefits from the photographic expertise of Josée Deshaies (nominated for the 2012 and 2015 Césars in his specialism for House of Tolerance [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Adèle Haenel
scheda film] and Saint Laurent [+leggi anche:
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Q&A: Bertrand Bonello
scheda film]).