release date October 23 2022
UNDER THE CONCRETE Screens During Lebanese Film Week
Roy Arida’s feature film UNDER THE CONCRETE will be featured at Lebanese Film Week (October 24th -30th). The screening will be on Monday, October 24th, at 7 pm, in VOX Cinemas, Beirut City Center, followed by a Q&A session with the director. Free entrance upon reservation.
The Lebanese Film Week is organized by MC Distribution in partnership with Metropolis Cinema, supported by The Arab Fund for Art and Culture – AFAC, through a grant from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation - SDC in the framework of the Reel Streams project.
The film will also screen during the 6th Lebanese Film Festival in Canada (October 28th - November 1st), and in the feature films section in TIFF Bell Lightbox, on October 30th at 3:45 pm
UNDER THE CONCRETE world premiered at La Roche-sur-Yon International Film Festival, in France. It held its Arab World premiere at Cairo International Film Festival, where it won Saad el-din Wahba Award for Best Arabic Film, and screened at Tripoli Film Festival, where it received the Special Jury Award.
“Arida has the makings of an excellent, fearless filmmaker whose potential we look forward to seeing deployed, buoyed by greater resources,” wrote Fabien Lemercier in Cineuropa. "Arida wants us to see - and just as importantly, hear - the world as Alain does, to go beyond character study into character immersion," stated Amber Wilkinson on Eye For Film website.
Set in Beirut, Lebanon, the film follows a series of car bombs that explode across the country, where Alain, a 32-year-old man, decides to turn his back on this deleterious situation to attempt to break the world record of deep diving.
Written and directed by Roy Arida. UNDER THE CONCRETE stars Alain Najm, Nathalie Japiot and Toufic Khreich. Jacques Girault was the DOP and Arthur Lauters was the underwater camera operator. It’s produced by STANK and MAD Solutions manages the distribution in the Arab world, while Indie Sales manages the international distribution. The film received grants from CNC, SCAM, Institut Français, and AFAC.
Roy Arida was born in Beirut. He studied cinema at La Fémis, Paris, in the directing department. Ever since his graduation in 2011 he has been working between France and Lebanon with an equal interest in both fiction and documentary films. In 2012, he co-founded STANK, a film production company based in France. UNDER THE CONCRETE is his first feature film as a director.
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