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Monday, December 30, 2013

Posters

The closer the film was to be finished, the more nervous we were. We were doing many things at the same time in parallel trying to meet DIFF's deadline. One of the most important things we worked on during that period was the film's poster. We looked at many film posters in order to find something that impress the 6 of us. We fell in love with some film posters that were made in Eastern Europe especially Poland in the 60's, then we began the journey of looking for a graphic designer whose work resembles such direction. We kept looking and looking until we found her on Behance. Maria Ines Gul is a graphic designer living in the UK so this meant lots of Skype meetings :) and the ironic thing is she's actually Polish so she was perfect. We really loved her work and after the experience of working with Anna on the music via Skype, working with Maria seemed like something we are used to or let me say experienced in :)

During a period of three months we had some skype meetings and wrote many many e-mails to each other. Maria sent us many sketches and first drafts and it took us around two months for all of us to agree on one thing. At the beginning we agreed on making two posters but then we ended up with three since we really loved Maria's work :)





Because Maria can't write Arabic, we had to find a way to design the posters in Arabic as well. We asked the Egyptian painter and visual artist Maher Guirguis whose work we really love to design the film's title in Arabic and we were more than happy when he agreed. After this there was one more step left which was transforming the rest of the text to Arabic. Since we were very busy back then, Yousry El-Dardiry who is a friend of Mohamad El-Hadidi and to whom we are very thankful came and volunteered to help us. 




Thank you Maria.. 
Thank you Mr. Guiguis..
Thank you Yousry..
Thank you everybody :)

DIFF 2013 Again

We were really surprised by most of the reactions we got after screening the film in Dubai International Film Festival which ended two weeks ago. We all know how important is the way this film was made but what was surprising and eye-opening is what people thought of the film itself whether they loved it or not. It was our first time to talk about it publicly and explain how it was made. The two screenings went really well and the film looked so different on the big screen. Many film critics wrote positively about the film and the film had its first review in the ScreenDaily :) We were also very happy to see regular people booking tickets in the movie theatre and paying actual money to watch our film. It was really quite an experience for the 6 of us and Mark Lotfy; the executive producer who joined us later in DIFF. 

Before the 1st screening

The film's ticket in the 2nd screening

We also had an panel discussion about teamwork with the filmmakers of another Lebanese film called "Void" that was competing for the Muhr Arab Feature award as well. It's also a collaborative feature made by 7 filmmakers so it was really important for both of us to talk about our different experiences especially with the fact the two films may sound similar but in fact they are very different.


Hend, Mayye and Nermeen during the panel discussion 

The most surprising thing for us was the press and all these interviews we had to do. At the beginning we had no idea what we should say but then by the end of the first day we did. Mohamad El-Hadidi's said it all in his live interview on Sky News Arabia. Thanks to the team of MAD solutions and especially Marwa, the film had a very good exposure and was always under the spot light. Here you can check all what was written about the film during the festival and afterwards.

Hadidi during his interview in Sky News Arabia

Hend during her interview in Nile Cinema

Many people are asking us now about our plans for the film in terms of distribution and we really have no clue. We want to submit it to different film festivals all over the world and maybe it's time now for us to learn more about distribution as we did learn everything else in the process of making this film.

Saturday, December 7, 2013

DIFF 2013

The mice have finally left the room :) Yesterday we arrived here in Dubai to attend the 10th edition of Dubai International Film Festival. The film's World Premiere is today in 2 hours actually :) We are very excited but nervous at the same time. We are also very glad that the 6 of us could make it since the festival only invited 4 of us and we had no money to pay for the other two. This is why we applied to ADEF travel grant (Jeeran) to cover the travel expenses of Ahmed Magdy Morsy. Mohamed Zedan was coming anyway to DIFF to participate with a feature documentary in production in Dubai Docs in Dubai Film Connection but he was coming just for 4 days which means he was going to miss the screening. We were over the moon when ADEF accepted Ahmed Magdy Morsy's application. They were also generous enough to make an exception and cover the accommodation expenses of the extra 5 days Mohamed Zedan needed to attend the film's screening. 

So once we arrived yesterday we had no time to rest as we had to go to the festival's opening night. It was our FIRST time to walk on the red carpet and we really enjoyed it :) After all these years and all this hard time, it was our moment. 

The 6 filmmakers and their first time on the red carpet

Since the film is also part of Dubai Film Market, we had to print some postcards and the press kit. We also met MAD solutions our marketing and sales agent to give them all the needed documents.
The film's postcard on one of the festival's decks

Mohamad El-Hadidi has just came in and yelled at me because we have to go to the screening. I told him it's important to post something about the screening but he said it's more important to go to the screening and that was convincing :)