Beirut-based Abbout Productions, led by Georges Schoucair and Myriam Sassine, will obtain Locarno Movie Competition’s producing prize, the Raimondo Rezzonico Award, at its upcoming 78th version, which runs August 6-16.
Schoucair and Sassine may even current two of their movies, Costa Brava, Lebanon by Mounia Akl and Reminiscence Field by Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, on the pageant.
Schoucair took over as CEO of Abbout Productions in 2004, with Sassine becoming a member of as lead producer in 2010. They’ve since shepherded an array of Arab and Lebanese characteristic movies into existence and onto the worldwide distribution market.
Lately, Schoucair and Sassine have produced movies resembling Costa Brava, Lebanon (Venice Orizzonti, 2021), Reminiscence Field (Berlinale Competitors, 2021), and works by native filmmakers resembling Ahmad Ghossein, Mohamed Malas, Ghassan Salhab, Oualid Mouannes, Cyril Aris, Ely Dagher, Rana Eid and Myriam El Hajj, whose Diaries From Lebanon premiered in Berlinale Panorama in 2024.
Schoucair additionally performed a pivotal position in opening, after which reopening, Beirut’s Metropolis Cinema, a key business and programming hub for the MENA area.
Sassine co-founded Maskoon Improbable Movie Competition, the one style movie pageant within the Arab area, and is actively engaged in movie coaching initiatives and business occasions. Since 2021, she has managed Aflamuna Connection, a Lebanese co-production platform for Arab filmmakers.
They are going to be given the Raimondo Rezzonico Award on the night time of August 7, and the following day may even participate in a public dialog on the pageant.
The Raimondo Rezzonico Award was created in 2002 in reminiscence of the president of the pageant from 1981 to 1999. Latest winners embody French producer Marianne Slot and US producers Jason Blum and Stacey Sher.
Giona A. Nazzaro, creative director of Locarno, mentioned: “The movies Abbout have produced are an indication of a society that’s important, alive, and continues to look to the long run with dogged confidence. By their movies, Georges and Myriam have been in a position to inform the story of a rustic in a position to come to phrases with its historical past whereas concurrently imagining a layered and multifaceted Lebanese id. They’ve additionally launched an excellent many new skills in entrance of and behind the digicam, serving to to provide Lebanon a brand new face, permitting it to satisfy its potential, and providing a posh portrait of the nation that goes far past the trivializations of the violence of conflict. They’ve labored tirelessly within the pursuit of a fertile and beneficiant dialogue.”