Alam

Firas Khoury
Palestine - France - Tunisia

Synopsis

Tamer is a Palestinian living in Israel. He and his friends lead the lives of typical high school students until the arrival of the beautiful Maysaa'. To impress her, Tamer agrees to take part in a mysterious flag operation on the eve of Israel's Independence Day—which is a day of mourning for Palestinians.

Fiction
1st feature
Director of photography

Frida Marzouk

Editor

Nadia Ben Rachid

Main Cast

Mahmoud Bakri, Sireen Khas, Saleh Bakri

Production

MPM Film (France)
Marie Pierre Macia, Claire Gadéa
info@mpmfilm.com

Co-production

Paprika Films (Tunisia)
Melik Kochbati

Philistine Films (Palestine)
Ossama Bawardi

Distributor

JHR Films (France) 
Jane Roger
info@jhrfilms.com

MAD Distribution (MENA)
distribution@mad-solutions.com

Director’s statement

As an adolescent and young adult, I wasn’t very different from Tamer, the main character in Alam. However, this story is not really an autobiography, even though Tamer draws his motivation, drama and emotions from what the generation of Palestinian-Israelis I belong, and thus I, myself, have lived through. This film seeks to reflect the historic reality of those Palestinians who decided not to become refugees in 1948 after their defeat (or Catastrophe – Nakba), a continuity that comes at the price of a pragmatic resignation, comprised of wounds, pain and most of all the things that go unsaid.

Biographies

Firas Khoury
Firas Khoury
Director

Palestinian director Firas Khoury holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Cinema. He has several short films to his credit; among them the award-winning Seven Days in Deir Bulus and Yellow Mums, which have been presented at numerous festivals and broadcast on television. His latest short film, Maradona’s Legs, which had its premiere at the Palm Springs ShortFest, received forty-five international prizes and has been available on Netflix since October 2021.

MPM
Marie Pierre Macia, Claire Gadéa
Producers

Prior to founding MPM Film in 2007, Marie Pierre Macia was the curator of the San Francisco International Film Festival and Director of the Directors’ Fortnight at the Festival de Cannes.
Claire Gadéa's first feature film credit as a producer was on Philippe Lacôte’s Run, which was selected for the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes in 2014. She joined MPM Film in 2014.
Together, Macia and Gadéa have produced or co-produced international award-winning films by established directors, among them Lucrecia Martel’s Zama and Karim Aïnouz’s Mariner of the Mountains, which was selected for Cannes in 2021. They have also worked with emerging directors such as Wanuri Kahiu from Kenya (Rafiki —a Cannes selection in 2018) and Azra Deniz Okyay of Turkey (Ghosts, which was selected for the Venice International Film Festival in 2020).

Total budget

€851 115

Financing secured

€701 115

Partners attached

CNC, CNCI, Doha Film Institute, AFAC, CineMed, MARE, Mad Solutions, JHR Films

Shooting period and locations

June - July 2021, Tunisia

Expected delivery

April 2022

Stage of post-production

Video editing in progress

Looking for

Private partners, International Sales

Other Films in production or post-production