The Toronto International Film Festival hasannouncedthat it has selected the Palestinian short film BONBONÉ by director Rakan Mayasi to compete in its Short Cuts section, where the film will make its world premiere at its 42nd edition (September 7-17).

In less than 16 minutes, BONBONÉ tackles the phenomenon of Palestinian detainees smuggling sperm out of Israeli prisons.

Written and directed by Rakan Mayasi, BONBONÉ stars Saleh Bakri, Rana Alamuddin and features Nadira Omran. BONBONÉ is produced by Groundglass235 in co-production with The Postoffice and Mad4Films, and in association with db Studios. MAD Solutions is responsible for distributing the film across the Arab world and Salaud Morisset is responsible of international sales.

Rakan Mayasi is a Palestinian filmmaker who was born in Germany, raised in Jordan, and currently based in Lebanon. Hestudied filmmaking in Lebanon and then received intense film training with Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami at the Asian Film Academy in South Korea. Mayasi practiced writing and directing in Serbia, Germany, Morocco, and Egypt. In addition to BONBONÉ, he has written and directed the two short films Sea Sonata and, Roubama which screened at the Locarno Film Festival in 2012. Mayasi is currently working on his debut feature film that is based on three different stories.