The Borrowed Dress Screens at the Malmo Arab Film Festival in Sweden

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The Borrowed Dress Screens at the Malmo Arab Film Festival in Sweden


The documentary film The Borrowed Dress by director Leen Alfaisal is taking part in the 8th edition of the Malmö Arab Film Festival (MAFF) in Sweden that will be held from 5 to 9 October. The film will screen on Tuesday, October 9, at 02:30 pm (GMT +1).

Standing as a unique platform for the Nordic and Arab film industries, MAFF aims to screen films from different Arab countries for the foreign communities residing in Sweden that include almost 175 nationalities. The festival attracts thousands of filmmakers annually, including directors, actors, producers, and film enthusiasts from around the world.

The Borrowed Dress landed its world premiere at the 3rd Karama Beirut Human Rights Film Festival in Lebanon. Recently, the film won the Best Documentary award at the Silk Road International Film Festival (SRIFF). The film's world premiere was held at the London International Filmmaker Festival of World Cinema, where it competed for the Best Foreign Language Documentary, Best Director of a Foreign Language Documentary and the Best Editing of a Short Documentary.

Grandmother Susu (80 years old), her daughter Doaa (50 years old), and her grandchild Saad (16 years old) are forced to flee Syria after the beginning of the revolution to live in different scattered places, with the one thing left to share being their desire to reunite. The details of their personal stories and human experiences are microcosms of two stories: one of a population that has spread all over the world, and the other of a homeland that might have changed forever.

Written and directed by Leen Alfaisal, The Borrowed Dress is produced by Sarah Hassan and Alaa Alassad (Creative Media Solutions). The film stars Siham Abu Nabbout, Doaa Al Zoabi and Saad Alkuwatly. The Borrowed Dress is distributed by MAD Solutions in the Arab world.

Leen Alfaisal is a Dubai-based video producer and camerawoman working at CNN International. Alfaisal graduated with honors from the American University in Dubai, with a major in journalism and a minor in Middle Eastern Studies and documentary film.

The Borrowed Dress is her first venture into feature documentary directing. She directed her first short documentary film, Without a Frame, during university, which made it into the final selection of the Original Narrative Student Short Film Festival in Dubai and the Arab Short Film Festival in Beirut.