One of the most anticipated titles at the “Venice Film Festival” this year is “A Sad and Beautiful
World”, the feature debut of Lebanese filmmaker Cyril Aris, screening in the Venice Days (Giornate degli Autori) section. Before the premiere I spoke with producer “Georges Schoucair” from “Abbout Productions”, whose impressive list of high-profile projects include the films of Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige as well as features by Mounia Akl, Ely Dagher, Oualid Mouaness, Mehdi Barsaoui and many others, including notable projects outside the MENA region.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Jay Weissberg
“A Sad and Beautiful World “has been described as a rom-com, but of course it's very much a rom-com à la libanais. Can you describe the difference?
Georges Schoucair
The difference is that the country is always a character in your life. More than in many other countries, it's permanently in turmoil. There are multiple religions, we had 17 years of war… Then there’s the Syrian presence in Lebanon, the Israeli presence in Lebanon, the Palestinian presence in Lebanon… So there’s always this struggle with people not comfortable in their own country, who want to emigrate. These conversations are always a part of us, so even when you make a rom-com, it's polluted by all these dreams, and you can’t do something without thinking that maybe there will be a war tomorrow or bankruptcy the day after tomorrow. Everything feels short term. That means when you do a love story lasting 30 years, like this one, you have the war for, like, 10 years, then the so-called “golden age” for 10 years, then, the bankruptcy.
But when we finished the movie, there was a new war. Actually, three: one in Lebanon, one in Syria, another one in Iran. Three wars by the end of the film shoot, with a movie that’s talking about war, bankruptcy and the golden age. This is Lebanon.
“A Sad and Beautiful World” is a story about Lebanon seen through the eyes of its two main characters. Yasmina (played by Mounia Akl) wants to leave, and Nino (played by Hasan Akil) wants to stay. That’s one pitch. The other pitch is that it's a love story with a guy who's a complete dreamer and his very efficient partner who suddenly discovers she's pregnant, and they have to deal with it as a couple.
JW
So, how do you pitch it to an audience in Lebanon?
GS
I don’t know, I have two months to think about!
JW
It’s impossible to talk about Lebanon, and a Lebanese audience, without talking about the diaspora.
GS
Yeah yeah. I think that half of the money coming into Lebanon is from the diaspora. Even with this movie, a third of the movie was financed by equity. These guys are from the U.S., but of Lebanese origin, wanting to participate in telling our stories through movies like this. My last four movies were financed by up to 20 to 30% by Lebanese coming from the diaspora. It's a small country! The sea is in front, and boats leave every day. This is one of the themes of the project.
JW
Every film made in Lebanon has a challenging production history, yet there has to be something unique about each production that has its own difficulties. What were the particular challenges with this film?
GS
We don't have subsidies or state money, or the equivalent of the CNC in France. So all my movies are made through European co-productions and financing from the Arab funds, specifically the “Red Sea Film Festival” today and the “Doha Film Institute” for the last ten years. Money also comes from the smaller funds in Europe, such as the “Sørfond” in Norway. Our specific structure is that there is no state money at all, it’s all private.
The specificity of “A Sad and Beautiful World” is that it’s a rom-com, which is unusual for independent films from the Middle East. Our stories are usually about immigration, misery, war… We joke that the Western world is waiting for this kind of stuff. Maybe, but this is what we do. When you have a high concept movie, it's easier to finance than a story about one neighbor in love with another neighbor. Doing a rom-com was a challenge because it meant using that formula as a first layer while of course talking about the country. Calling it a rom-com just makes it easier to open the conversation. I produced a movie in 2019 called “All This Victory” by [Ahmad Ghossein], it was here in Venice at Critics’ Week, and it was about four Lebanese people stuck on the ground floor of a building, and four Israelis on the first floor. It’s all tension, and nothing happens. It was considered “high concept” and that was easy to finance. At the same time I was financing a film noir directed by Michel Kammoun called “Beirut Hold’em”, and that took from me five years.
With Cyril’s “A Sad and Beautiful World”, the challenge was to finance a love story happening in Lebanon. So of course there’s political and social texture, but it’s a love story and not the cliché the European funds expect to come out of the Middle East.
JW
With each project you take on, you have to find a way of helping the director find their vision, to help them understand how best to realize what they have in their head, even if they can't quite figure that out themselves. How about working with Cyril Aris on A Sad and Beautiful World?
GS
The conversation between director and producer is a dialogue about efficiency and art; one has an artistic vision, the other one is thinking about efficiency. That’s not just with money, or vetoing an actor or something, but also whether the movie will work with an audience. Is it too intellectual or too commercial? It’s a conversation specifically related to independent cinema, because in mainstream commercial cinema it’s a different mechanism.
With Cyril, I must say it wasn’t complicated because he’s very, very well-structured. Intellectually, he's very efficient. It was very clear in his head. The complexity with him was not the vision. The difficulty was to tell a love story, one everybody knows, but make it specific to the country. And make it interesting for 90 minutes.
Cyril and the director of photography, Joe Saade, worked a lot together on everything. On the choices of lenses, on the lighting; they thought a lot about all these details, all of which were based on the script. The sets were very dense and complex because of this. I was thinking, “why all this material, there’s just too many people in the room.” But no, it was just right, he really thought about everything.
JW
So despite all the challenges of being a producer in Lebanon, you’re still continuing.
GS
Of course, I will definitely continue! Your territory is important. You can’t leave the territory, but you can expand. Five years ago I opened “Schortcut Films”, a company that invests in international movies. I invested in an “Apichatpong Weerasethakul” movie [Cemetery of Splendor - 2015], in “Jean-Luc Godard” [The Image Book - 2018], in “Wajib -2017 ” [Annemarie Jacir], and “Lucrecia Martel’s” “Zama- 2017”. Now I’ve opened “Player Films” with “Christian Eid”, to work on projects as the main producers and not just investors, like in “Schortcut”. The first project is about Sudanese immigration in Egypt, and we’re working with director Amjad Abu Alal. It's a wonderful project.
I’m also interested in producing films made by Lebanese in the diaspora. For instance, a Lebanese story happening in New York, or in Rio or in Paris. Some of the directors I work with are part of the diaspora but they come to Beirut and tell their stories. Now I have some people whose stories are set abroad. I’m working on these ideas, but I have five feature films and two TV series in the next three next year, so I'm staying in Beirut. We have the next Ahmed Ghossein film, also the next Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige film, called “Beirut Baby”. And also a social comedy starring “Hend Sabri” and “Hiam Abbas”, which we hope to shoot next year or the year after. You know, in French they say “être libanais est un métier” (“being Lebanese is a profession”)!