Shadows
Spring Grants 2020 - Production Stage
Rand Beiruty / Short Documentary / France, Jordan, Qatar / 10 min
Synopsis
It’s Ahlam’s first time at an airport. But soon, the excitement of travelling to a new place is overshadowed by the melancholy of choosing to leave her past behind, indefinitely. At a large neon-lit departure hall, a blue deer guides us through some of her childhood memories and traumas. Similar to the travellers gruesomely devouring their food at the airport cafeteria, the barbaric reality of her child marriage strikes her. At 14, she gives birth to her child. At the airport security check, memories of her lonesome and painful childbirth take the shape of a fetus assembly line. The once disoriented deer metamorphoses into an unrelenting and fearless creature, ready to take on the world and embark on a new journey to heal and accomplish her dream of becoming a self-sufficient flight attendant.
Credits
- Director
- Rand Beiruty
- Screenwriter
- Rand Beiruty
- Producer
- Jude Kawwa
About the Director
Rand Beiruty is a writer, director, and co-founder of Shaghab Films, a production company based in Amman, Jordan. She holds a practice-based Ph.D. revolving around questions of representation and participatory filmmaking from the Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF. She has pitched her projects on international platforms and received awards from, among others, the Tribeca Film Institute, Mifa Animation du Monde, the Arab Cinema Center, and the European Network of Young Cinema. Her debut feature documentary Tell Them About Us premiered at CPH:DOX 2024 and received the ECFA Award for Best European Feature Documentary for Young Audience at the 64th Zlín International Film Festival while her Short Animated documentary SHADOWS celebrated its world premiere at the 81st Venice International Film Festival.