STORY LINE
The young man has a syndrome which interrupts his breathing during sleep. Whenever he stops moving, he dozes off adding to his disorientation. His mother Claudia has still not accepted his father’s disappearance after 15 years. She stays at home should her husband return, Malek drives around the city alone in his car.
Each of them trying to live with a void of lost love. But today may be the “perfect day” to lay their ghosts to rest. Malek is taking his hesitant mother to declare her husband officially dead in the “absence of a body”. And that evening, in a trendy nightclub where the young of Beirut go to dance and forget their troubles, Zeina looks ready to give Malek a second shot at the love he so yearns for.
PRODUCTION
Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige
Produced by
Anne-Cécile Berthomeau and Edouard Mauriat for Mille et une Productions (France)
Co-producers
Georges Schoucair for Abbout Productions (Lebanon)
Thanassis Karathanos for Twenty Twenty Vision (Germany)
CAST & CREW
Ziad Saad (Malek), Julia Kassar (Claudia), Alexandra Kahwagi (Zeina), Rabih Mroué, Carole Schoucair, Joseph Nader, Pascale Sekkar, Joseph Sassine
| Executive Producer | Farès Ladjimi |
| Assistant Producer | Marianne Katra |
| Image | Jeanne Lapoirie |
| Editing | Tina Baz Le gal |
| Set design and costumes | Sophie Khayat |
| Assistant | Vanessa Damouss |
| Sound | Guillaume Le Braz |
| Sound Editing | Sylvain Malbrant, Nicolas Moreau |
| Mixing | Olivier Goinard |
| Music | Scrambled Eggs: Charbel Haber, Marc Codsi, Tony Elieh,Said EliehSoap Kills, Zeid Hamdan & Yasmine Hamdan |
| First assistant director | Sophie Audier |
| Second assistant director | Corinne Chawi |
| Script | Zeina Saab de Melero |
| Time | 88 minutes |
| Format | 35 mm color -1.85. |
| Sound | DTS stereo |
| Year | 2005 |
| Original Language | Arabic (subtitles) |
| Visa n 111 312 Dépôt Légal 2005 |
DIRECTOR'S NOTES
This is a personal story. The uncle of Khalil is one of the 17,000 persons reported missing in Lebanon during the war. They left their homes one morning, one evening, and never came back. Where are they ? Beirut is a small city in the midst of reconstruction, the ground is constantly being excavated and yet nothing has been found. No mass graves, no traces. For us, the trauma of disappearance has not faded with time. It is an abyss, a chasm, and at the same time a wealth of possibilities.
Is it necessary to forget, or to the contrary, by denying our phantoms do we risk denying ourselves, becoming like the living-dead who no longer see, no longer hear, and no longer feel?
It is also the story of a generation, ours, which Malek belongs to. Young people with humdrum existences who let themselves be carried along the daily life. Trapped between the guilt of a dark past that is difficult to assume and the anguish of an uncertain future in a politically unstable region, how can they live in the present, love, construct, find their place in society?
Things are in a state of latency, the present is hard to live in, or else lived out “hysterically” in the nights of Beirut, nights where people go out to forgot themselves, lose themselves. They go to clubs and bars in search of a community, to try to find a rhythm, to reclaim their bodies and those of others.
It is a film shot in the cut. Reality is not reconstituted. On the contrary, we decided to insert ourselves into reality, filming in public places in a documentary-like manner. At times the shots are stolen, provoked. We created situations to capture this energy, to enable the story to come to pass.
A perfect day is a film about sensations, atmosphere, mind frames, wrong tracks and vivid situations in the fascinating and paradoxal town that is Beirut today.
SCREENINGS
- Locarno International Film Festival 2005
- Toronto International Film Festival – Discovery 2005
- Athens International Film and Video Festival 2005
- Festival do Rio 2005
- Namur Francophone Festival 2005
- Reykjavik International Film Festival 2005
- Viennale (Vienna International Film Festival) 2005
- Festival du Nouveau Cinéma of Montreal 2005
- BFI London Film Festival 2005
- Tokyo Filmex 2005
- Nantes Festival des 3 Continents 2005
- Gijón International Film Festival 2005
- Belfort Entrevues International Film Festival 2005
- Dubai International Film Festival 2005
- Muscat International Film Festival 2006
- International Film Festival Rotterdam 2006
- Barcelona International Film Festival – 100 000 retinas 2006
- Damas French Institute 2006
- Mexico FICCO 2006
- London BAFTA Arab Cinema 2006
- Belgrade International Film Festival2006
- Alba Infinity Festival 2006
- Istanbul International Film Festival 2006
- Hong Kong International Film Festival 2006
- Open Doek Film Festival Belgium 2006
- Tribeca Film Festival 2006
- Mosaïques Festival of World Culture London 2006
- Seattle International Film Festival 2006
- Sydney International Film Festival 2006
- Aman French Film Festival 2006
- Modern Art Oxford 2006
- 25° Cuertas Vila Do Conde International Film Festival 2006
- Festival du Film Francophone Safi 2006
- Casablanca International Film Festival 2006
- Munich International Film Festival 2006
- Melbourne International Film Festival2006
- Sarajevo Film Festival- Panorama 2006
- Copenhagen Middle Eastern Film Festival 2006
- Santiago International Film Festival 2006
- Alexandria International Film Festival 2006
- Arabian Sights Film Festival Washington 2006
- De Balie Amsterdam 2006
- Udine Far East Film Festival 2006
AWARDS
- Fipresci Prize and Don Quixote Award, Locarno International Film Festival, Switzerland
- Montgolfière d’Argent, Best Actor Award and SACEM Prize for Sound and Original Music, Festival des 3 Continents, Nantes, France
- Bayard d’Or for Best Actor and Special Jury Mention, Namur Francophone International Film Festival, Belgium
- Best Film Award (with distribution assistance), Belfort Entrevues International Film Festival, France
- Official selection, Locarno International Film Festival, Switzerland
- Selected at Toronto International Film Festival, Canada
- Best Director Prize, Alexandria Mediterranean Film Festival, Egypt
CONTACT
World sellers
Jean-Christophe SIMON
FILMS BOUTIQUE
Deautschland.
+49 177 621 6562
France.
+33 6 24 61 58 58
E-Fax.
+33 8 26 67 07 77
