Feature Narrative
TOTAL BUDGET
$1,029,402
CONTACT
myriam@abboutproductions.com
The Badri family lives an idyllic life of isolation in the Lebanese mountains away from the Country’s rot. When the government decides to build a landfill on the land of their house, they are devastated.
The Badri family lives an idyllic life of isolation in the Lebanese mountains, away from the country’s rot. When the government decides to build a landfill on the land plot where their house is built, they are devastated. As the trash of an entire country piles up on their doorstep, the hidden tensions among the family arise, shaking their existence to its core.
I was born the year the Lebanese Civil War ended. In these post-war years, I observed the fear of my parents’ generation, a desire to dissociate. My parents couldn’t deal with the trauma, so they never talked about it; were overprotective; and secluded my sister and I. They convinced us the only safe place was home. However, when their marriage grew crippled, our safe place exploded, driving us to reinvent our home and enter the real world.
Ever since then, Lebanon has been struggling to find its balance again. Grudges and corruption culminated in the irreversible garbage crisis that started in 2015. Ironically, since then, the child in me created parallels between the country and my home. Every time Lebanon suffered, my family suffered.
My home was a microcosm of Lebanon. Costa Brava tells the story of a family living a utopian life of isolation in the mountains, away from a rotten world. The father believes this is the way to protect his family. However, when the government chooses their land as the new landfill of the country’s trash, their utopia cracks. This invasion drives them to extreme versions of themselves, awakening repressed feelings, and making them realize the rot had reached their insides as well.
Myriam Sassine majored in Cinema Studies at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts (ALBA) in 2005, and received her MA in Cinema Research from the Institut d›études scéniques et audiovisuelles (IESAV) in 2009. In 2005, she started working as a story producer on several reality shows such as the Arab versions of international formats from Reveille Productions, Fox and Endemol. She directed a documentary, The Palestinian Cause in Lebanese Cinema (2009), and a short video, No Connection (2006), which was selected for the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival and screened in various festivals and galleries worldwide. Sassine has also worked in content development at Lucky Monkey Pictures (USA) and Abbout Productions (Lebanon). In 2012, she became an Associate Producer at Abbout Productions, producing her first feature documentary e muet in 2013, which was directed by Corine Shawi and premiered in the International Competition at FID Marseille. She then produced A Time to Rest by Myriam El Hajj in 2015, which screened in many international film festivals. Sassine participated in the 2011 DocMed programme for Arab producers, the 2012 Torino Film Lab Interchange Programme, and the 2014 Berlinale Talents programme. She is the COO of Schortcut Films, dedicated to co-producing international features, and the Executive Director of Maskoon Fantastic Film Festival, the first fantastic film festival in the Middle East, the first edition of which took place in September 2016
ut Productions produces feature films and documentaries, supporting Arabic-language movies with a distinctly Arab voice that expresses the identity of the region. The company was established in 1998 by Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, later joined by Georges Schoucair, who became Abbout Productions› producer shortly after the release of their first feature film.feature films.