Feature Documentary Film
TOTAL BUDGET
USD $252,000
CONFIRMED FINANCING
USD $40,800
CONTACTS
dfdavie@gmail.com
+961 71821233
sabbah.moe@gmail.com
+961 3031596
yara.abi.nader@gmail.com
+961 70995097
julia.wagner@heartwake.de
+49 17662959402
An HIV-positive woman and a gay man experience living with sexually transmitted infections in Lebanon. They engage with others to wake up to the feeling that everything is possible.
Danielle, who lives with HIV, seizes life in her filmed diary. Mohamed poetically explores the physical and sensual struggle he had with HPV. Together, they dialogue and break the silence around STI (Sexually Transmitted Infections) in Lebanon, and unveil other individuals’ experiences, forming a chorus of humans aspiring to beauty.
We, Danielle and Mohamed, both faced STIs that changed our perception of bodies - in terms of personal construction and our place in our society. The subject of STIs is taboo in Lebanon. Our project gives a voice to people who had or are currently living with STIs. It is not the goal of this film to expose traumas or portray stories in order to prevent such infections. It rather aims to understand how to make one’s wound natural to the point of integrating it into one’s life.
We both have a strong urge to make this film. It is a personal and artistic need to accomplish a new step on our journeys, and a need to share and explore the path of a body that carried or still carries an STI. We translate our own stories and the stories we collect to a narrative and a visual experimentation. Working together adds a dialogue dimension to the film, and brings a wider layer of questions and reflections. We are building the core of this film.
Through our work, we wish to transcend the constraints imposed on the body, by placing the subject in the public space and thus universalizing it.
It is a creative documentary breaking taboos in Lebanon and normalizing what is not the most comfortable subject to talk about, regardless of where in the world we are, and however “open” the society around us might look. We want to be part of this project and bring it to life and the big screen. Embodied Chorus opens an enriching dialogue across art, film, social and cultural understanding. Through the vivid diversity Danielle and Mohamed bring into this project, it merges a narrative we, as producers and individuals, believe in, and want to create visibility for. Together, the four of us have experienced a critical and fruitful exchange since we started working on Embodied Chorus, taking both the film and our relation to new levels. We want to spread this film as wide as possible, to really meet all potential audiences with the right partners. Therefore, we have built a production structure between Lebanon and Germany with the ambition to be seen and perceived internationally.
Yara Abi Nader
2017: Chronic
2017: Take 18
2014: Where There Is Nothing but Water
Julia Wagner
2018: What Doesn’t Kill Us
2014: Dark Sugar
2012: The White Treasure