CM 2024

Tunisian Ministry of Culture

Utopia Films (Own investment)

The Sunflowers of the Moon

Douar al kamar

Current Status &amp; Goals at CineMart In early 2024, The Sunflowers of the Moon&nbsp;is in an advanced writing process and at the very beginning of its financing stage. In its development phase, the project has received support from the main local partner, the Tunisian Ministry of Culture via its Film Production Fund. In 2022, the scriptwriting was featured in the midst of Meditalents LabMed one-year-long writing workshop. Finalising the script will be carried out in the first half of 2024, alongside a more active financing process with the last quarter of 2025 as the primary aim for the shoot and the beginning of 2027 as a release period goal. CineMart is our market debut. As such, our main objective is to get in touch with potential partners: European co-producers and international sales agents, pre-sales, and distributors. At this very moment, we already secured around 10% of the total budget. Securing the shoot financing plan in mid-2025 requires an intense process that we will launch at Rotterdam. Synopsis2001, while there&rsquo;s a lunar eclipse, Hayet is born in the red-light district of Tunis. Just after giving birth, her mother is stabbed to death. Hayet spends her childhood in semi-confinement. Her only escape are the roofs of the Old Moorish-style part of the city in the middle of which is located the red-light district. Hayet discovers the world from the rooftops, observes from a distance children her age.Drawn by the demonstrations in January 2011 that will lead to the Arab Spring, Hayet flees the red-light district. She will live in the streets, with no other companion than her sphinx cat, whom she calls Sboui. Sboui spends a great deal of time on Hayet&rsquo;s shoulders, as if he was a part of her. Moreover, Sboui is an exceptional cat as he speaks to Hayet. The two have conversations as two people would have. He&rsquo;s a confident and an advisor.2033, Tunis is like a post-apocalyptic city: deserted, in ruins, and ghostly. Not that there was a catastrophic event, just a decay process that no one stopped. The city is witnessing its last days because a massive demolition and reconstruction plan will soon be executed. Hayet lives with her aging cat Sboui in an abandoned colonial house in a suburb. She lives from begging, petty theft and selling salvaged goods that she reworks as best she can. Hayet's path crosses that of Wahid. He is younger but overall, he does not fare as well. Hayet takes him under her wings. A strong and strange relationship starts between the two, made of tenderness and carelessness but also of violence and poverty. For these two lonely beings, the taming of each other is full of difficulties. Especially that Sboui is jealous and tries his best to break the new bond between Hayet and Wahid.The two pull off heists and rob rich young women in posh neighborhoods. Samy, the detective in charge of investigating these robberies, ends-up tracking them down and a confrontation ensues between the three. Hayet kills Samy, gets shot in the stomach and leaves Wahid for dead. Wounded and hunted by the police, Hayet returns to the red-light district to find it empty and deserted. Wahid, who was only unconscious, wakes-up and starts looking for Hayet: chaos is everywhere as the military is evacuating the last inhabitants before the demolition. Hayet bleeds to death in her room as Sboui watches. Wahid searches for Hayet then is forcibly evacuated. From afar, Wahid witnesses the last buildings destroyed by explosives and falling like houses of cards.&nbsp;Director's Biographyisma&euml;l is a filmmaker, a visual artist, and a writer. He directed Black Medusa&nbsp;(Tiger Competition, IFFR 2021),&nbsp;Fragments of self-phone-destruction&nbsp;(awarded at Experimental and Different Cinema Festival, Paris 2019),&nbsp;Leila&rsquo;s Blues&nbsp;(premiered at Cannes&rsquo; Director&rsquo;s Fortnight 2018),&nbsp;Babylon&nbsp;(Grand Prix, FID Marseilles 2012) among others. He also produced&nbsp;The Last of Us&nbsp;(Lion of the Future, Venice 2016). During the second half of 2023, isma&euml;l finished three new films, among them:&nbsp;Hackers of the Borders, a documentary shot over several years around Syrian refugees in Lebanon (international co-production supported by the CNC, Red Sea Fund, IDFA Bertha Fund). As a visual artist, he exhibited photography works, video art, printed works, and multimedia installations at several venues. As a writer, he published an essay on Tunisian cinema, a poetry collection (Letters to Death, Toulouse, 2009), and numerous poems, papers, articles, and short essays in both printed and online publications. After a year of residency in Paris writing the screenplay for his next feature film, he is now back in his hometown Tunis to prep the shoot: a realistic and intimate take on zombie movies set to be shot between Tunisia, France, and Tahiti. It will be isma&euml;l&rsquo;s fourth feature-length film and his second narrative one.

Utopia Films

2001: Hayet is born and lives secluded in Tunis red-light district with her only friend a talking sphinx cat. 2011 Revolution: Hayet escapes and discovers freedom and life outside the red-light district. 2033: Hayet meets Wahid. After a violent altercation, they befriend each other and together, they discover human relations and emotions.