Shadows
Spring Grants 2020 - Production Stage
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Rand Beiruty / Short Documentary / France, Jordan, Qatar / 10 min
Synopsis
It’s Ahlam’s first time at an airport. But soon, the excitement of travelling to a new place is overshadowed by the melancholy of choosing to leave her past behind, indefinitely. At a large neon-lit departure hall, a blue deer guides us through some of her childhood memories and traumas. Similar to the travellers gruesomely devouring their food at the airport cafeteria, the barbaric reality of her child marriage strikes her. At 14, she gives birth to her child. At the airport security check, memories of her lonesome and painful childbirth take the shape of a fetus assembly line. The once disoriented deer metamorphoses into an unrelenting and fearless creature, ready to take on the world and embark on a new journey to heal and accomplish her dream of becoming a self-sufficient flight attendant.
About the Director
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After obtaining her MA degree in Media Arts from Bauhaus University Weimar, Rand Beiruty is pursuing a practice-based PhD from The Konrad Wolf Film University of Babelsberg. She is an alumna of Berlinale Talents, Beirut Talents, Film Leader Incubator Asia, Documentary Campus, Locarno Documentary School and Ji.hlava Academy. She was nominated for the Robert Bosch Film Prize in 2018 and 2020. Beiruty won the ESP Jury Prize for the International Script Pitch at Interfilm Berlin 2016 for her short animation ‘Encountering Samir’ and the Tribeca Film Institute IF/Then Pitch Competition at CPH:DOX, 2017 for her short documentary ‘Nudar’. She’s now developing her first feature documentary titled 'Tell Them About Us' that won best pitch at the Reception of German Film Schools during Berlinale 2020.