A Road to Damascus
Spring Grants 2019 - Development Stage
Meedo Taha / Feature Narrative / Lebanon, Qatar / 120 min / Original Language: Arabic / Interests: Women, Drama, Environmental, Thriller, Politics, Social Issues, War, Adaptation, Psychological, Identity
Synopsis
Gunshots ring out. A bus from Beirut to Damascus crashes. The only witness is a young botanist collecting branches along the road. The last victim dies in his arms with a final plea: “Feed the cat”. When it’s soon revealed that among the dead passengers was a former prime minister travelling unaccompanied, the botanist cowers deeper into his insulated life, terrified of getting involved. But those final words echo through his mind, keeping him up at night, leading him to discover an empty apartment, a starving cat, and a telescope aimed at his own bedroom window. As the country plunges into turmoil, he embarks on a quest for answers through a minefield of absurd clues: a victim whose murderer no one seems to be looking for, a deaf cat with hazel and blue eyes, a map of star constellations, a veiled woman in men’s shoes, and an acacia tree wavering between life and death. ‘A Road to Damascus’ is an existential thriller set in a country where family and politics are deeply intertwined, and where desire and fear share the same bed.
Credits
- Director
- Meedo Taha
- Screenwriter
- Meedo Taha
- Producer
- Marie Mouchel-Blaisot, Richard Magnien
- Production Company
- MAT Productions
About the Director
Meedo Taha is a Lebanese director and writer whose work questions identity outside predefined social or political groups. His screenplay ‘Other People’ received support from the Samuel Goldwyn Screenwriting Awards, Francis Coppola’s Screenplay Competition, and the Sundance Institute. His short film ‘The Incident’ screened worldwide, with awards from the Directors Guild of America, Phoenix Film Festival, and Lebanese Film Festival. ‘A Road to Damascus’ is based on his novel of the same title and has participated in Rawi Screenwriters Lab and DFI Producers Lab. Meedo earned a PhD in Architecture from the University of Tokyo and an MFA in Directing from UCLA.