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Tadmor

Fall Grant 2015 - Post-Production Stage

Synopsis

Raymond. Youssef. Ali. Saad. Moussa. Rashid. Mahmoud. Elias. Individuals. Together. The Lebanese men in this film were incarcerated in Syria during their country’s civil war. All were banished to the notorious Tadmor Prison, where they suffered the same fate as countless Syrians. Words alone cannot describe the cruelty of the hell these men survived: torture, suffering, fear, contempt and humiliation. In an extraordinary endeavour of artistic collaboration, they decide to recreate that diabolical place, so as not merely to re-enact, but rather to relive key scenes from their abysmal experience. By showing us the unspeakable, they bring us a step closer to understanding the incomprehensible. Their individual will to survive and their collective capacity for survival is what ‘Tadmor’ is about. It is a testimony to each man’s will to live.

Credits

Director

Lokman Slim, Monika Borgmann

Producer

Monika Borgmann

Production Company

UMAM Productions

About the Director

Born in Germany, Monika Borgmann studied Arab Philology and Political Science in Bonn and Damascus. She worked with the German radio and press outlets ARD and Die Zeit from 1990 to 2001 as a freelance journalist. She is multilingual, which is fundamental to her dual Lebanese-German citizenship. Along with Lokman Slim, she co-founded UMAM Productions in 2001. Together, they wrote and directed ‘Massaker’ (2005), a documentary that portrays six perpetrators associated with the infamous Sabra and Shatila massacres that occurred during the Lebanese Civil War. The film was selected for more than 50 festivals and received several awards.

Lokman Slim was born in Lebanon. He studied Philosophy and Ancient Languages at the Sorbonne. In 1988, he returned to Lebanon, where he founded the publishing house Dar Al-Jadeed. In 2001, Slim and Monika Borgmann founded UMAM Productions, which produced or co-produced mainly documentaries. With Borgmann, Slim authored and directed the documentary ‘Massaker’ (2005), a portrait of six perpetrators of the infamous Sabra and Shatila massacres in Lebanon (1982). The film was selected for more than 50 film festivals, received several awards, and was released in cinemas in France, Switzerland and Greece.

Awards and Festival History

Festivals

LatinArab Film Festival 2016, International Competition
International Adana Film Festival 2016
War on Screen 2016, Special Screening
Days of Cinema - Film Lab Palestine 2016
Zürich Human Rights Film Festival 2016

Jihlava International Documentary F

Awards

Special Mention of the Jury and SESTERCE D’ARGENT SRG SSR most innovative Swiss feature film, Visions du Reel 2016, International Competition (WP)
Political Film and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Awards, FilmFest Hamburg 2016

Contacts

• Director

  Monika Borgmann

  Company: 

  UMAM Productions

  Phone: 

  +9611553604

  Email: 

  monika.borgmann@umamproductions.com

• Director

  Lokman Slim

  Company: 

  UMAM Productions

  Phone: 

  +9611553604

  Email: 

  lokman.slim@umamproductions.com

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