IF THE SUN DROWNED INTO AN OCEAN OF CLOUDS scores a Jury Prize win at Clermont-Ferrand Int’l Short Film Festival

release date February 12 2024

Riding the wave of its recent success at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, where it won the National Special Jury Prize, Wissam Charaf’s IF THE SUN DROWNED INTO AN OCEAN OF CLOUDS is now set to feature in the 30th edition of European Film Weeks, which will run from February 14th to March 2nd.

Scheduled to screen four times across the country, the French-Lebanese comedy short can be viewed at the following locations and screening times:

February 15th, at 8 pm at Lutetia, Casablanca

February 17th, at 7 pm at Le Colisée, Marrakech

February 21st, at 7 pm at Cinéma Rif, Tangier

February 24th, at 6 pm and 9 pm at Renaissance, Rabat

Set on the waterfront of a construction site in Beirut, Lebanon, the film is a poetic story about unfulfilled dreams; a universal tale about a man who will have to take an odd path to exist, and follows Raed — a security guard who must prevent passers-by from accessing the shoreline.

Yet, as the horizon becomes more obscured with every passing day by the under-construction building, Raed begins finding himself in all manner of peculiar encounters—or maybe mere dreams and figments of his desires?

IF THE SUN DROWNED INTO AN OCEAN OF CLOUDS has garnered international recognition and acclaim since its world premiere at the Orizzonti Section of the Venice International Film Festival, going on to win awards from prestigious film festivals around the world, including the Unifrance International Award at the Festival International de Courts Métrages d'Aix-en-Provence and the Best Short Film and the Emile Chahine Award for Cinematic Excellence at the Beirut Shorts International Film Festival.

Additionally, it garnered a positive reception during its screening at the 23rd edition of the CinemaMed - Festival Cinéma Méditerranéen de Bruxelles and was screened at several festivals around the world, including the Cinemed - Montpellier Mediterranean, Stockholm, Cork, Arab, and Ciudades Reveladas – Muestra Internacional de Cine y Ciudad film festivals.

The film stars Raed Yassin, Rodrigue Sleiman, Said Serhan, and Hala Dabaji and was lensed by Martin Rit, produced by Charlotte Vincent and Katia Khazak (Aurora Films), co-produced by Pierre Sarraf (Né à Beyrouth Films), with sound by Emmanuel Zouki and music by The Incompetents.

Born in Beirut in 1973, Wissam Charaf is a French-Lebanese director who has directed seven short films, including UNFORGETTABLE MEMORY OF A FRIEND, which received an award at the 2019 Clermont-Ferrand Festival.

Before that, Charaf’s first fiction feature film, HEAVEN SENT, was selected for the ACID Section of the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, and his second fiction feature, DIRTY DIFFICULT DANGEROUS, opened the Giornate degli Autori Section of the 2022 Venice Film Festival, where it won the Europa Cinemas Award before being awarded at the 2023 Palm Springs Film Festival.

IF THE SUN DROWNED INTO AN OCEAN OF CLOUDS is the third collaboration between Charaf and MAD Solutions.