Director Damien Ounouri's Kindil El Bahr at Dawawine in Lebanon

Back to Press Releases

Winner of Eight Awards at International Film Festivals

Director Damien Ounouri's Kindil El Bahr at Dawawine in Lebanon


Director Damien Ounouri's film Kindil El Bahr will have its Lebanese screening at the Dawawine Cultural Center in Beirut on Thursday, May 11 at 08:00 pm. Most recently, the Algerian short film Kindil El Bahr has won two awards at the Luxor African Film Festival (LAFF).

Dawawine is a non-profit organization and an initiative aims at providing a free space for performing arts, in addition to a library with a reading area, a screening hall room, a meeting room and a café. The library contains the recent publications considering cinema, video, theatre, dance, performances, music and sound.

Dealing with violence against women, Kindil El Bahr follows, Nfissa, a young mother who during a beach daytrip with her family is drowned by a group of young meanwhile swimming offshore. Nobody seems to witness her disappearing. Anxiety and fear grow among the family, especially as, on the same beach, bathers mysteriously start to die. The film stars Adila Bendimerad, Nabil Asli, Aziz Boukerouni, and Souad Sebki.

Directed by Damien Ounouri, who also co-wrote the film with Adila Bendimerad, Kindil El Bahr is a co-production between El Hadi Bouabdallah, Talal Al-Muhanna, Karim and Amin Bengana, Nathalie Fedrizzi, and Amine Mentseur, while the distribution of the film in the Arab world is handled by MAD Solutions.

Landing its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, Kindil El Bahr has received eight awards at several international festivals including; the Audience Award for Best Short Narrative and the Best Artistic Achievement awards at the Luxor African Film Festival (LAFF); Special Jury Award and Best Film- Rossellini Jury of Roberto Rossellini Institute at the Med Film Festival in Italy; an Honorable Mention and the Jury Prize at the Oran Arab Film Festival in Algeria; the Filmmaker to Filmmaker award at the Aspen Film Festival in USA; and a Special Mention at the African Film Festival of Tarifa and Tangier (FCAT).