The Tower Screens at the Metropolis Youth Film Festival in Lebanon

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Winner of Two Awards at the Chicago International Children's Film Festival

The Tower Screens at the Metropolis Youth Film Festival in Lebanon


The animation film The Tower by director Mats Grorud's will screen within the 5th edition of the Metropolis Youth Film Festival in Lebanon (11 - 14 April). Recently, the film was part of the 5th Reel Palestine's annual film festival in the UAE, as part of its commercial release in the Arab world.

The Metropolis Youth Film Festival was created in 2016 in partnership with the Embassy of Denmark in Lebanon and the U.S. Embassy in Beirut at the Metropolis Empire Sofil Cinema. The festival is dedicated to youth and children films.

Most recently, The Tower received the Liv Ullmann Peace Prize and the Professional Jury: 2nd Prize for Best Animated Feature Film at the Chicago International Children's Film Festival. The film took part in different film festivals, including: the Cairo International Film Festival, Marrakech International Film Festival, London Palestine Film Festival, Palestine Cinema Days, Annecy International Animated Film in France, Arab Film Festival in Famac, France, and Busan International Film Festival.

Written and directed by Mats Grorud, The Tower features the voices of Romina Adl Kasravi, Mohamed Bakri, Najila Said, and Morad Hassan. The film is a French- Swedish-Norwegian coproduction that is distributed in the Arab world by MAD Solutions.

The film is following Wardi, an eleven-year-old Palestinian girl, who lives with her whole family in the refugee camp where she was born. She learns about her family's history through stories told to her by three earlier generations of refugees.

Mats Grorud is a Norwegian director and animator who studied Animation at Volda University College. He complimented his animation career with studies in Denmark, Beirut and Beijing. Mats directed the short films Santa Klaus and My Grandmother Beijing, in addition to animation films Kaja Polmar (2006) and Piotr Sapegin's Grandpa is a raisin (2006).

Today, Mats runs his own company called Nubbsjangs Productions, where he develops his own projects, does commissioned work and teaches animation. He has also worked on several documentary projects. In 2007, Grorud started working on his debut feature animated film, The Tower, along with producer Frank Søbstad at Tenk.tv.