Visions of the After: Dark Cedar
Fall Grants 2024 - Development Stage
Ali Hamouch / TV Series / Lebanon, Qatar / 50 min / Original Language: Arabic / Interests: Drama, Thriller, Politics
Synopsis
“These seven stories revolve around protagonists struggling to navigate a harsh environment—whether in a dystopian or post-apocalyptic world. The episodes suggest different ‘projections’ in time, ranging from near-dystopia to an end-of-the-world universe, based on the dramatic arcs of the characters. The protagonists are tested in varied ways, shaped by the subgenre of each dystopian episode—whether procedural, melodrama, comedy, coming-of-age, or fish-out-of-water. This thematic concept becomes a cohesive dramatic structure when all the stories converge in the final episode, weaving together a main plot and a subplot that clarify the series’ narrative choices and tie the episodes into a unified arc.
The planned seven episodes are as follows: ‘Birth of a Leader’, a coming-of-age dystopia; ‘The After’s After’, a dystopian (and dark) comedy; ‘Chameleon’, a federal (and racist) dystopia; ‘King of Games’, a dystopian thriller; ‘A Judge’, a procedural dystopia; ‘Us & Them’, a dystopian romance; and ‘A Mother’, a dystopian/utopian melodrama. The series finale, ‘A Mother’, will link all the previous episodes through a major twist, redefining the viewer’s understanding of the events that came before.”
Credits
- Director
- Ali Hamouch
- Screenwriter
- Toufic El-Khoury, Ali Hamouch
- Producer
- Hady Zaccak
- Production Company
- Gilgamesh Studios, Zac Films
About the Director
Ali Hamouch is a Lebanese filmmaker, writer, and co-founder of the independent production house Gilgamesh Studios. Ali’s films have been showcased at numerous international festivals. His short film ‘Neon Ashes’ (2019) won the Best Screenplay Award at the Casablanca Short Film Festival, and his short documentary ‘Treasure House’ (2020) received critical attention for its insightful portrayal of Mongolian cultural heritage. In 2024, his short film ‘An Encounter’ was selected as a Market Pick at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival. In addition to filmmaking, Ali works as a screenwriter and story supervisor for upcoming television series, collaborating with production companies such as Netflix, Déjà Vu Studios, and Cedars Art. In 2023, Ali became a resident of the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris to further develop his first feature project, titled ‘Evil Eye’, as the recipient of a grant from the Fondation Liban Cinema (FLC) and the Ville de Paris.