Three MAD Shorts to screen at Cinémed International Mediterranean Film Festival

release date October 24 2024

The Arab World’s leading film distribution and PR giant MAD Solutions is set to make a splash in the French town of Montpellier with three shorts from its impressive distribution slate screening at the Cinémed International Mediterranean Film Festival running from October 18th to 26th.

This MAD short lineup includes Maha Haj’s poignant Palestinian short UPSHOT, Rehab Nazzal’s gripping Palestinian documentary VIBRATIONS FROM GAZA, and Rayane Mcirdi’s fascinating Algerian short AFTER THE SUN.

UPSHOT, which will be holding its French premiere at Cinémed, world premiered at the 77th Locarno Film Festival, walking home with the Pardino d’Oro Swiss Life for Best Auteur Short Film Award and the Junior Jury Award for the Best Auteur Short Film.

This is the latest film written and directed by the acclaimed Palestinian filmmaker Maha Haj — whose feature film, MEDITERRANEAN FEVER, won the Best Screenplay Prize in the Un Certain Regard of the Cannes Film Festival in 2022.

Set against the backdrop of Gaza's enduring strife, UPSHOT is a gripping drama that tells the story of Suleiman and Lubna, a couple who retreat to a mist-shrouded, isolated farm as they try to cope with unspeakable loss. Through the alchemy of storytelling, Suleiman and Lubna conjure a parallel reality free of their pain in which their lives unfold in vivid detail. But when a journalist intrudes upon their sanctuary, wielding the blunt force of truth, the fragile illusion they've constructed threatens to unravel.

The film is set to have two screenings throughout the festival's runtime. The first will take place at 8 pm on October 21st at the Corum-Einstein Room, and the second at 2 pm on October 23rd at the Corum-Pasteur Room.

As for VIBRATIONS FROM Gaza — which will be screening twice at Cinemed's Corum-Pasteur Room, once on October 22nd at 2 pm and another on October 24th at 6 pm followed by a Q&A — it has just walked home with the Best Short Film Award at the recently concluded BFI London Film Festival.

The film offers a glimpse into the lives of deaf children in the besieged and occupied Gaza Strip. Through the voices of children who have grown up under the relentless blockade and repeated Israeli aggression, it vividly conveys how they experience the bombings, destruction, and drone buzz overhead.

Last, but certainly not least, AFTER THE SUN — which world premiered at the 77th Cannes — will also screen twice, once on October 23rd at 6 pm followed by a Q&A and the other on October 25th at 12:15 pm, with both screenings taking place at the Corum-Pasteur Room.

Written and directed by Rayane Mcirdi, the short film is set in the evocative 1980s and follows a young girl who embarks on her first summer journey without her newlywed sister. Amidst the backdrop of a nostalgic family road trip from France to Algeria, she endeavors to reignite the bonds with her heritage, delving into a homeland rich with cherished memories waiting to be rediscovered.