All Projects

Grandma, a Thousand Times

Fall Grant 2010 - Post-Production Stage

Mahmoud Kaabour / Feature Documentary / Lebanon, United Arab Emirates, Qatar / 2010 / 48 min / Colour / Original Language: Arabic, English / Interests: About Family, Documentary, Dramedy

Synopsis

‘Grandma, a Thousand Times’ puts a feisty Beiruti grandmother at the centre of brave film exercises designed to commemorate her many worlds before they are erased by the passage of time and her eventual death.
Teta Fatima is the 83-year-old matriarch of the Kaabour family and the sharp-witted queen bee of an old Beiruti quarter. With great intimacy, the film documents her larger-than-life character as she struggles to cope with the silence of her once-buzzing house and imagines what awaits her beyond death. Meanwhile, her beloved violinist husband, who died 20 years earlier, is both an essential absence and presence. His features manifest themselves through the face of their filmmaker grandson, while his previously unpublished violin improvisations weave through her world and that of the film. ‘Grandma, a Thousand Times’ brings together grandfather, grandmother and grandson in a playful, magic-realist documentary that seeks to defy a past death and a future one.

Credits

Director

Mahmoud Kaabour

Producer

Eva Star Sayre

Executive Producer

Eva Star Sayre

About the Director

Mahmoud Kaabour is a Lebanese filmmaker, content strategist, and the founder of Veritas Films. He graduated in Film Production from Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema in Montreal before working for the National Film Board of Canada and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. His films’ Being Osama’, ‘Grandma, a Thousand Times’ and ‘Champ of the Camp’ won top awards at festivals like Doha Tribeca, London International Doc Fest, DocsDF, Taiwan International Doc Fest and Dox Box, and were all broadcast internationally. In 2015, he was named on the Arabian Business “100 Most Powerful Arabs Under 40” list. He is currently based in Berlin.

Awards and Festival History

Festivals

IFF Rotterdam 2011, Spectrum Shorts
DOKUart 2012 (Croatia)
Short Shorts FF 2012, Focus on the Arab World
Ana Contemporary Arab Cinema Festival 2012
Documentary Edge Festival 2012
win Cities Arab FF 2012
LAU FF 2012
Arab World Shorts Programme in th

Awards

Audience Award for Best Documentary and Jury Special Mention, Doha Tribeca FF 2010, Arab Feature Film (WP)
Best Film Award, London Int'l Documentary Festival 2011
Celebrate Age Best Film, Bombay IFF 2011
Audience Award for Best Documentary, Dox Box Doc

Contacts

• Main Contact

  Eva Star Sayre

  Company: 

  Veritas Films

  Phone: 

  +971 501 152 606

  Email: 

  champ@veritasfilms.ae

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