The Tower Takes Part in the San Sebastian Human Rights Film Festival in Spain

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The Tower Takes Part in the San Sebastian Human Rights Film Festival in Spain


The animation film The Tower by director Mats Grorud screened at the 17th edition of the San Sebastian Human Rights Film Festival in Spain (5 - 12 April) on Saturday, April 6. This comes ahead of the film's screening at the Metropolis Youth Film Festival in Lebanon, Cairo Cinema Days, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

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, Busan International Film Festival, Helsinki International Film Festival, and European Film Festival in Ishbilia.

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.