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 His features manifest themselves through the face of their filmmaker grandson, while his previously unpublished violin improvisations weave through her world and that of the film.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, an award-winning Lebanese director, writer, and lecturer, graduated from the Mel Oppenheim School of Cinema in Montreal. He was named to the “100 Most Powerful Arabs Under 40” list in 2015. His first documentary, ‘Being Osama’ (co-directed with Tim Schwab), looked at the lives and times of six men who share bin Laden’s first name in the post-9/11 world, received four international awards and was aired internationally. His ‘Grandma, a Thousand Times’ (2010) screened in more than 55 cities worldwide, winning seven audience and best film awards. His current film, ‘Champ of the Camp’ offers the world an unprecedented glimpse into the lives of the thousands of UAE construction workers who participate in a massive annual Bollywood singing competition. Kaabour is the founder and managing director of Veritas Films.
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
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