10th edition CIFF – 10-14 April 2024

Tramontane (2017 Feature Film)

Vatche Boulghourjian | Lebanon, France, Qatar, United Arab Emirates | 2016 | 105 min | Arabic | d.s.

Moving, ingenious, and musical narrative about life after war. When his band is to perform in Europe, blind Lebanese musician Rabih has to get a passport. This leads to a quest for his roots in a country where the civil war has left a trail of lies and loss. Who is really blind here?

He is doubly blind really, young Lebanese musician Rabih. He hasn’t seen the sea since his early youth, but now he is also in the dark about his own future. He happens to find out that his ID card is a forgery. In addition, his birth certificate was apparently lost during the civil war. Rabih’s quest for his identity takes him on a journey past lies and sorrow and traces of the civil war that ravaged Lebanon between 1975 and 1990. His own mother lied to him, and she’s not the only one. What was the role of his Uncle Hisham, who found little Rabih as a baby in a village destroyed by the war? Hopefully his old comrades have an answer.

With his feature debut, Vatche Boulghourjian shows us a classic story about the quest for truth in the midst of a sea of lies, to which he adds ingenious plot twists. A good listener will find answers in the beautiful musical intermezzos.

Place: CINEMA 5

Date: 6 April 2017

Time: 13:30

Duration: 1:20

Place: CINEMA 3

Date: 7 April 2017

Time: 21:45

Duration: 1:30

Year in
Festival

2017

Director

Vatche Boulghourjian

Camera

James Lee Phelan

Cast

Barakat Jabbour
Julia Kassar
Michel Adabachi
Toufic Barakat
Abido Bacha
Odette Makhlouf
Georges Diab

Country

Lebanon
France
Qatar
United Arab Emirates

Editor

Nadia Ben Rachid

Language

Arabic

Length

105 min

Music

Cynthia Zaven

Producer

Caroline Oliveira
Georges Schoucair / Abbout Productions

Production Company

Abbout Productions

Production Design

Nadine Ghanem

Sales

The Bureau Sales

Scenario

Vatche Boulghourjian

Sound Design

Rana Eid

Year of Production

2016

Vatche BOULGHOURJIAN (1975, Kuwait) is a Lebanese filmmaker. Before attending New York University, where he studied film, he worked on television documentaries throughout the Middle East, while also making short experimental films and documentaries. His graduation film The Fifth Column (2010) premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. Other short films screened at festivals worldwide and received numerous awards. Tramontane (2016) is his first feature film.

 

Filmography

Thabh-Ul-Azim/Noble Sacrifice (2002, short doc), Night, She Said (2005, short), Good Soldiers (2006, short doc), New York Sunshine (2007, short), Canto (2008, short), Ali Al-Iraqi/Ali the Iraqi (2008, Short), Zandekiminu Dar Dastemonu/ Life by the Horns (2009, short), Hinkerort Zorasune/The Fifth Column (2010, Short), Tramontane (2016)