In collaboration with the Red Sea International Film Festival, the short film Barakat by Manon Nammour will be screened within the Misk Art Week in Riyadh ( December 3-7). The first screening for the film will be held on Saturday, December 5 in Prince Faisal bin Fahad Arts Hall, followed by an online discussion with the director.

The upcoming MISK Art Week, which will be running for five days, explores the notion of re-cultivating our culture as we live it through talks, panels, workshops, exhibitions and live performances. Aiming to foster creativity and engage the community, this year’s edition will be taking place online and offline.

Recently, Barakat screened at Malmo Arab Film Festival. It took part in a number of prestigious international film festivals including Toronto International Film Festival, where it had its world premiere, Tampere International Short Film Festival (Finland), International Short Film Festival of Cyprus, Films Femmes Méditerranée Festival (Marseille) and Glasgow Short Film Festival (Scotland).

People hold the memory of their cities and vice versa. After-war, modern Beirut and its people have lost their anchors towards a memoryless relationship. Vacant luxury stores and overpriced unoccupied apartments have made the rebuilt city a costly monument of vanity, commodified heritage, and social-delusion.

Written and directed by Manon Nammour , Barakat stars Mounir Maasri, Rudy Ghafari and Camile Salame. MAD Solutions handles the film’s distribution in the Arab world.

Manon Nammour is a Lebanese director/ production designer who studied filmmaking at the Notre Dame University in Lebanon. Her film On the Ropes was selected at the Pardi di Domani section at Locarno Film Festival, Dubai International Film Festival, Tampere Film Festival, along with several other film festivals.

In December 2018, Nammour was chosen as one of the five “Arab Stars of Tomorrow” by Screen International UK and Dubai International Film Festival. Arab Stars of Tomorrow is an initiative aiming to highlight the rising talents in the region. Nammour’s latest work is the short film Barakat.