Light
Ajyal Competition - Ajyal Youth Film Festival 2015
Yassmina Karajah / Short Narrative / Canada, Jordan, Lebanon / 2014 / 13 min / Colour / DCP2K / In Arabic, English / Arabic, English subtitles / Qatar Premiere
Rated: Parental guidance advised for viewers under the age of 15. Individuals under the age of 15 are not admitted into cinemas unless accompanied by an individual aged 18 or over.
Synopsis
Overwhelmed by anguish and far from the comforts of family, Omar, a young Lebanese man, speaks via cellphone from a Canadian hospital with his pleading mother, who gently tells him how to go about performing the Islamic pre-burial rituals. Quietly devastating, ‘Light’ sidesteps melodrama, relying on tight close-ups, stilted conversations and Omar’s incomplete actions to illustrate his feelings of paralysis. Ahmed Muslimani provides a finely nuanced performance that conveys Omar’s desperation, fear and loneliness, and lays bare a grief so unbearable it defies his comprehension.
Credits
- Director
- Yassmina Karajah
- Screenwriter
- Yassmina Karajah
- Producer
- David Findlay, Jenna Hambrook
- Editor
- Jenna Hambrook
- Cinematographer
- Benjamin Houde-Hostland
- Cast
- Ahmed Muslimani, Souad Karim