Feature Narrative Film
TOTAL BUDGET
US $502,954
CONFIRMED FINANCING
US $56,569
CONTACT
francisarah@gmail.com
+961 3797545
When Farid, a 58-year-old man living abroad, visits his wife in the country, he learns that their dog has died but no one informed him. Old tensions arise, and Aida learns that her husband is returning home for good.
When Farid, a 58-year-old emigrant, visits his wife Aida for a few days in their second home in the mountains, he learns that his dog died after apparently being shot by someone in the village several months ago, but no one informed him. When they go to the location where the body is supposedly buried, they discover that the mountain has become a granite quarry. On the way back, Farid reveals the purpose of his visit: he is planning to return home for good after years spent abroad. Farid is in a sentimental mood and determined to reconnect with his wife, but Aida resists his romanticism, preferring to cling to the pre-established order. In the village, there’s a funeral and a celebration.
Playful children appear and disappear around Aida, like an omen. Tensions arise when she accidentally learns that due to financial problems, her husband is trying to sell their main residence in Beirut and to settle with her in this inherited mountain house. When he finds the remains of his dog and buries them in their garden, Aida brings the rifle and engages in a grotesque act in front of the neighbor then reaches out to friends and family asking for support in Farid’s financial difficulties.Their attempt at reconnecting has failed this time. Farid solemnly sets his dog's grave on fire; and takes a taxi to the airport. His visit is over, but soon, he’ll visit again.
Years ago, I remember carefully watching a couple in their 60’s one night. They had recently married after respective failed relationships, and they seemed happy together. Slowly, the man started drinking glass after glass, which seemed to be an old habit of his, and embarrassed himself in public. Instead of reprimanding him or holding him back, his wife was caring and gentle. It was as if she had accepted that she could only access parts of him. My young 20-year-old self longing for fusion and total understanding sat there pondering on whether it was wisdom and respect or if it was compromise. With time, I remain fascinated by human relationships and by the part our imagination plays in the creation of a personal story. What images, often fixed in time, do we rely on to construct our lives and how do we engage or get lost in endless role-plays, while failing to grasp a solid reality? How do we manage to live despite - or thanks to - the maze of expectations, distance and misunderstandings? The film captures a couple that is fluttering but unable to fly, and we progressively understand that this is a round among countless other ones.
It is this flutter, this temporary possibility bound to fail, that I am interested to film. I am interested in telling a story while exploring the possibilities of cinematic language. Here, Aida and Farid progressively lose their absolute monopoly on the film and become inscribed in an organic net of life and death.
Migration is a global issue. Lebanon is a country of about 4 million inhabitants while the diaspora counts between 10 and 14 million people around the globe. Throughout generations, often the man worked abroad while the rest of the family remained in the country. Dead Dog is not the story of a man who wants to emigrate but rather the story of that man, 15 years later, when he tries to return home. Is it really possible to come back? And where does he belong? The couple of Aida and Farid is also representative of a middle class slowly disappearing in a county in constant regression. Although still sheltered from extreme misery, Aida is alienated; she hides in her bubble, in a car, a house, while public space is irreversibly shrinking and while social life and family structures are falling apart. It tackles local matters (the quarry for example, is one of 3000 other ones, illegally changing the country’s landscape to provide concrete for Beirut’s canyons of anarchic high-rise apartments, since the end of the war), while it resonates with global issues such as migration. However, most importantly, the film speaks the universal language of intimate relationships. The project has the potential of reaching a wide audience while embracing the craftsmanship of an auteur film.
2014: Nawal's Ritual
2013: Birds of September