release date November 22 2022
Bassel Ghandour’s THE ALLEYS to feature in San Francisco’s Arab Film Festival
Jordanian director Bassel Ghandour’s debut feature THE ALLEYS will soon land its US premiere at the 26th Arab Film Festival in San Francisco – which will run from November 11th to the 20th – screening on Sunday, November 13th at 8:30 pm (GMT+7) at the New Parkway Theater.
The Arab Film Festival is the longest-running independent festival of its kind in North America. Launched in 1996, the festival's mission is to present the best contemporary films that illuminate the richness of Arab culture.
In other news, THE ALLEYS is scheduled to be released on November 9th in Egyptian theaters following its commercial release in the UAE, its home country of Jordan, and 21 theaters in Saudi Arabia, after which it will soon be released throughout the rest of the Arab world.
Set in a gossip-ridden, violent neighborhood in East Amman, THE ALLEYS follows the story of a young hustler that will stop at nothing to be with his secret lover, but her mother will not have it. When an extortionist’s camera captures a video of the couple in the act, the mother solicits a gangster to put a stop to it all, however, things do not go as planned.
The film was critically acclaimed by several critics and websites, with Screendaily describing the film as having a “confidence and style… none of these characters fade into the background; each has autonomy and presence in their own story.”
Meanwhile, Popmatters praised the film, saying “the director exploited his tools in making an entertaining film, and succeeded in breathing fresh life into his characters,” which was confirmed by the Upcoming , which referred to THE ALLEYS as “an exciting film that weaves complex and intelligent topics into compelling and thoroughly entertaining character arcs.”
Recently, the film received the Audience Award and a special mention from the Malmo Arab Film Festival in Sweden in addition to the Grand Prix du Jury at the Festival du Premier Film d’Annonay in France.
It was also nominated for four awards at the Critics’ Awards for Arab Films, which are presented by the Arab Cinema Center on the sidelines of the Cannes Film Festival.
Previously, Bassel Ghandour co-wrote and produced Theeb – the nominee for Best Foreign Language Film at both the Academy Awards and the BAFTAs. It also received the BAFTAs Award for Outstanding Debut.
As a project, THE ALLEYS received the Jury Award in the Eastern Promises filmmaking program at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic. It also received two awards from Cairo Film Connection for feature films in the post-production phase at the Cairo International Film Festival’s 2020 edition.
It was also supported by the Jordanian Film Support Fund by The Royal Jordanian Film Commission, the Doha Film Institute in Qatar, and the Red Sea Film Festival Lodge for Film Development in Saudi Arabia.
During the development phase, the project received the support of the EAVE Producers’ Workshop, Rawi Screenwriters Lab, the Dubai Film Juncture, and Sorfend Film Promotion Forum of the Norway Fund to Support Southern Cinema.
Furthermore, THE ALLEYS participated in dozens of international festivals, most notably the BFI London Film Festival and International Film Festival Rotterdam, and had its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival.
THE ALLEYS is written and directed by Bassel Ghandour and starring Emad Azmi, Baraka Rahmani, Munther Rayahnah, Maisa Abd Elhadi, Nadira Omran, and Nadim Remawi.
It was produced by Bayt Al Shawareb (Yousef Abd AlNabi), The Imaginarium Films (Rula Nasser), and Lagoonie Film Production (Shahinaz el Akkad) as co-producer, while MAD Solutions is responsible for distribution in the Arab world and Elle Driver is handling international sales.
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