Even if you only spend a little time in Beirut you begin to lose your center. Our generation has always struggled between the heaviness of the past, a hypothetical future, and a present that’s lived as an intense instant.
#Makings for a perfect day plus#
We tried to direct Ziad and Julia so that you don’t necessarily see their emotions but you feel them.īidoun: Presumably Malek’s sleep apnea syndrome (which interrupts his breathing during sleep, and causes him to fall asleep at odd moments in the day), plus the scene in which he’s driving and puts in his girlfriend’s contact lenses, deliberately blurring his vision, is symptomatic of Beirut’s wider malaise, its liminality? The actors, a mix of professional and non-professional, weren’t given any script: we just directed scene by scene, as we did on our short Ramad (Ashes). Joana Hadjithomas: This is his first film, and we were casting for a long time before we met him and discovered his special rhythm. How did you coax this subtle performance from a non-professional actor? The film takes place on the day that Claudia finally agrees to register her husband dead, fifteen years after he disappeared during the Civil War.īidoun: Congratulations on your latest prize, the Namur Film Festival’s Bayard d’Or for Ziad Saad. Due for release in Lebanon and France this spring, it is a lyrical portrait of the relationships between Claudia (Julia Kassar), her son Malek (Ziad Saad) and his girlfriend (Alexandra Kahwagi). Filmmakers Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige’s second feature, the ironically titled A Perfect Day, won the FIPRESCI International Critic’s Prize on its premiere at Locarno Film Fes-tival, and has since played at festivals in Europe, Asia and North America to great acclaim and further awards.
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