The Borrowed Dress Takes Part in the Luxor African Film Festival (LAFF)

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Winner of Best Documentary at the Silk Road International Film Festival

The Borrowed Dress Takes Part in the Luxor African Film Festival (LAFF)


Marking its Egyptian premiere, Director Leen Alfaisal's documentary film The Borrowed Dress will compete in the 8th Luxor African Film Festival (LAFF) (March 15-21), within its Freedom Competition, on Saturday, March 16 at 02:00 PM with English subtitles at the Luxor Public Library. The film won the Best Documentary award at the Silk Road International Film Festival (SRIFF) in Ireland.

Regarded as one of the foundation's most important projects, the Luxor African Film Festival (LAFF) is organized by the Independent Shabab Foundation (ISF), which is a non-profit entity that is registered at the Ministry of Social Solidarity. The Festival aims to support and encourage African films production and the partnership between continent countries, and promote the city of Luxor through cultural and artistic events.

The Borrowed Dress world premiered 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. The film made its Arab world premiere at the 3rd Karama Beirut Human Rights Film Festival in Lebanon, and screened at the Malmö Arab Film Festival in Sweden and the Karama Human Rights Film Festival in Jordan.

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 in the Arab world by MAD Solutions.

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.