Biography:
© Sarah Francis
Sarah grew up in Beirut and graduated from IESAV (Universite Saint Joseph Beirut). Since 2005 she has been working as a freelance director for many production companies and has participated in several workshops and labs.Her first documentary Birds of September/Touyour Ayloul (2013) screened in many international festivals and museums including CPH:dox (Copenhagen), Art of the Real (Lincoln Center, New York), Dubai Film Festival, and Stedelijk museum (Amsterdam) and won several awards.
Her work also includes videos - including Nawal's rituals, (2014). She is now developing a new fiction project with the support of the Asian Cinema Fund.
Project info:
Dead dog (working title)When Farid, a 60-year-old man living abroad, visits his wife Aida for a few days at their Lebanese mountain house, he learns that their 16-year-old dog died and no one had told him about it. Soon, tensions arise as the old dynamics of the couple resurface, and Farid confesses he's returning home for good. The film explores Aida and Farid's inner journey as they face their relationship for the first time in years. Around them, a wedding ceremony is in preparation, dogs are howling in the valley, and the mountainside is mined away by stone crushers.
STATEMENT JURY:
The choice of Sarah Francis’ project is, first and foremost, based on her remarkable works and, particularly, on the very nature of the project. The subject that she has chosen, emigration, is a key issue in Lebanon. However, she addresses it in reverse by looking at the return of an emigrant who is no longer a young man. She studies his difficult, if not impossible, readjustment to a new life and to reconnecting with his relatives who have become strangers to him.