'Farah' stars Stephanie Atala, which was selected as one of Screen International’s Arab Stars of Tomorrow in 2020.
Lebanese film Farah, directed by Hassiba Freiha and Kenton Oxley, has won Best Arab Film and Best Art Direction (Nazir Nassar and Moussa Baydoun) at the 38th Alexandria Mediterranean Countries Film Festival, Egypt, where it competed in the festival’s Nour El Sherif Competition for Long Arabic Films.
Alexandria Mediterranean Countries Film Festival aims to spread film culture and bring together filmmakers from all over the world, particularly those from the Mediterranean region.
Farah previously won Best Feature Film (Audience Poll) at the Lebanese Film Festival Canada and world premiered at the Beirut International Women Film Festival, and also screened at the San Diego Arab Film Festival.
The film follows Lina, a pre-med student, who starts experiencing severe recurring nightmares and is sent back home to Beirut, Lebanon. She is prescribed the controversial antidepressant ‘Xapa’ – also known in its illegal form as ‘Joy’ – to help her recover. However, as Lina’s alarming nightmares continue to worsen and a link between them and her birth mother, Farah, becomes clear, she sets out on a quest to uncover a web of family secrets that will lead her to discover an untold story.
Written by Hassiba Freiha who also directed it along with Kenton Oxley, Farah stars Stephanie Atala, Majdi Machmouchi, Hassiba Freiha, and Youssef Boulos. The film is shot by Elias Trad and edited by Marcus D’Arcy. Mad Solutions is in charge of the film’s distribution across the Arab world.
Hassiba Freiha is a writer and producer, who worked on several projects including Temperance, which was screened at the Middle East International Film Festival as well as the Short Film Corner at the Cannes Film Festival. Later, an independent online platform acquired the distribution rights of the film.
Freiha worked on several other projects including the feature film, City Island, with Andy Garcia and Alan Arkin, and National Wildlife Federation’s project Campus Chillout, which featured Vice President Al Gore, Oscar-winning producer, and Philanthropist Jeff Skoll, and Oscar-winning producer Lawrence Bender. Following these projects, Hassiba co-produced, assistant-directed, and starred in the short film Wahdon (Alone) which went on to be part of film festivals around the world. In addition to acting in a handful of other short films, Freiha was hired by twofour54 Abu Dhabi, a government-backed media services company, to join their post-production team as a bookings manager before moving up the ranks to manage their department.
Kenton Oxley owns Knockout Production Services, which is based in the UK. Oxley worked on several multi-million-dollar blockbuster projects and also worked previously with twofour54, Abu Dhabi.
