Get the latest gossip
Lebanese Director Karim Kassem Had Two Weeks to Improvise a New Film on the Fly
Two weeks before shooting, 'Moondove' director Karim Kassem had to improvise a new film on the fly.
The nonfiction film was supposed to follow a young woman who returns to a small village in Mount Lebanon after years of living abroad, with the central lead helping to connect the various eclectic townsfolk she would encounter. After spending a decade in New York – where he found success both as a DJ and as a commercial DP – Kassem returned to his native Beirut just one day before the 2020 port explosion that leveled much of the city, nearly killing him. The filmmaker had lined up a Kafkaesque peek into bureaucratic dysfunction called “Before Now, Later” – and even brought the title to this year’s Cairo Film Connection development platform – but Israel’s ongoing war against Lebanon will make production impossible.
Or read this on Variety
