Jonathan Millet’s GHOST TRAIL set to hold Arab World premiere at 7th El Gouna Film Festival

release date October 22 2024

Jonathan Millet’s French-Syrian feature film GHOST TRAIL will be holding its Arab World premiere as part of the Feature Narrative Competition at the upcoming seventh El Gouna Film Festival — which is scheduled to take place from October 24th to November 1st — with director Jonathan Millet and producer Pauline Siegland in attendance.

The film’s screening details are as follows:

Friday, October 25th at 5pm — Sea Cinema 1

Saturday, October 26th at 2pm — Sea Cinema 3

GHOST TRAIL held its world premiere as the opening film for the Cannes Film Festival’s 63rd Critics’ Week earlier this year. It has since screened at the Sydney Film Festival and the Melbourne International Film Festival, receiving widespread praise from critics and audiences alike, where IndieWire’s Christian Zilko praised the film for being “filled with beautiful shots that demonstrate how you don’t need a single word to illustrate the pain in a human soul.”

He went on to say that “the film marries some of the best aspects of spy thrillers and slow cinema in a portrait of the ways that wars haunt us long after we escape them.”

The film is a manhunt thriller inspired by true events, where the past and present collide, exploring themes of justice and redemption.

Based on the true story of a secret group who hunt down the regime’s fugitive leaders, the film starts off in Syria and follows Hamid, who joins a secret group tracking Syrian regime leaders on the run. His mission takes him to France, pursuing his former torturer for a fateful confrontation.

A joint production between France and Syria, the film stars French-Tunisian star Adam Bessa, known for Netflix’s EXTRACTION and EXTRACTION 2, and winner of the Best Actor Award at Canne’s Un Certain Regard for HARKA, as well as Tawfeek Barhom, and Julia Franz Richter.

Directed and co-written by Millet alongside Florence Rochat, GHOST TRAIL was lensed by Olivier Boonjing, edited by Laurent Sénéchal, and produced by Pauline Seigland and Philippe Logie.

In terms of the bigger companies at play, the film was produced by Films Grand Huit, Nikofilms, and Hélicotronc, while MK2 handles the film’s World sales and MAD Distribution handles its Arab World sales and distribution.

GHOST TRAIL was supported by several grants and organizations such as Canal+ Ciné+ & Arte, Eurométropole de Strasbourg, Eurimages, Franco-German Mini-Treaty, the Images of Diversity Fund, Cofinova 20, Cinémag 18, Indéfilms 12, Cinéaxe 5, BeTV, and the Berlin Regional Fund.

Jonathan Millet was born in Paris. After studying philosophy, he spent many years filming distant or inaccessible countries for image databases. Alone with his camera, he crossed and filmed around fifty countries (Iran, Sudan, Pakistan, all of South America, the Middle East, and the length and breadth of Africa).

Encouraged to go to the most remote regions, Millet learned to capture faces and spaces, in an attempt to transcribe an atmosphere in a few shots.

After this experience, he directed three short films, OLD LOVE DESERT (2012), YOU GO ROUND IN CIRCLES IN THE NIGHT AND YOU ARE DEVOURED BY FIRE (2015), AND ALWAYS WE WILL WALK (2016) — which was nominated for the 2018 César Award — and a medium-length film, LA VEILLÉE (2017). These films were selected in numerous festivals such as Clermont-Ferrand, Pantin, and Brest.

He also directed the feature documentary CEUTA, SWEET PRISON, which was released in cinemas in January 2014 after more than 60 festival selections.

His latest film TELL ME ABOUT THE STARS (2017) was shot in Antarctica and nominated at the Docudays UA International Documentary Human Rights Film Festival.