Jordanian cinema continues its great international spread. After the Cannes Film Festival announced the nomination of the movie “God Willing to Be Born”, directed by Amjad Al-Rasheed, to compete in the awards of the 76th session of the festival, which will be held from May 16 to May 27, the festival management announced the participation of The Jordanian short film “The Red Sea Cries”, directed by Faris Rajoub, is in the Directors’ Half Month Competition, to be the first Jordanian short film to participate in the prestigious film festival.
The movie “The Red Sea Weeps” tells the story of “Aida”, whose soul is inhabited by something, so she bids farewell to her lover and feels his presence for the last time, and travels to a remote place where he disappeared. The film is directed by Fares Rajoub, co-written by Matthew LaPaglia, and starring: Clara Schevening, Ahmed Shihab El Din, Mohamed Nizar, Anwar Khalil, editing by Benedict Strick, and director of photography Mahmoud Bel-Akhal. MAD Solutions handles the film’s global distribution, while Pyramide International handles it. International Sales.
The events of the film were filmed in a semi-fictional city in southern Jordan with a 16 mm camera, and it was established in the Golden Triangle region, which brings together Aqaba, Petra and Wadi Rum.
Director Faris Rajoub expressed his happiness with the participation of his film in the prestigious festival, saying: “This film is a very personal work, and it is wonderful that my efforts and the work team are appreciated at this level. Of course, it is touching that our film is one of the first two Jordanian works to participate in Cannes Festival at all, and thanks to all those who paved the way for the Jordanian film industry to exist in international competition, including: Naji Abu Nowar and Bassel Ghandour, who gave me faith when I was in my infancy after their completion of the movie (Theeb), and they were proof to me that we can participate and compete on The global level by creating a real, unique cinema that the whole world can see.
Rajoub hoped that the film would reach the hearts of his fellow contemporary directors in the same way, offering them a kind of faith that would touch their hearts and inspire their own work.
Director Rajoub resides in Berlin, Germany, where he is attending graduate studies at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, and previously studied at Emerson College in Boston. In his work, Rajoub aims to employ the cinematic language to experiment with aesthetic form and texture. He also seeks to discover identity politics in the form of self-expression confessions, which is cinematically translated into character studies to discover the tension between social dystopia and sensual idealism.
