For the 10th year in a row, MAD Solutions, the MENA region’s leading film distribution and PR agency, presented an award at the 12th Final Cut in Venice (September 1-3), this time offering its distribution grant to IN THIS DARKNESS I SEE YOU by Nadim Tabet, a post-production Arab feature-length film. 

A joint production between Lebanon, France, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, the film follows Tarek, a young Syrian deserter who finds work at a construction site near a Lebanese village. As construction progresses, strange events occur, leading the Syrian workers to suspect sabotage by the villagers.

With Abbout Productions and Clandestino Films in charge of production, both MAD Solutions and Film Clinic Indie Distribution will distribute the film in the Arab world. 

Taking place over three days during the Venice Production Bridge at the 81st Venice International Film Festival, the 12th Final Cut in Venice featured seven films. This year’s selections included works by directors from five different countries — Egypt, Lesotho, Lebanon, Morocco, and Mozambique — with a notable representation of films from Egypt, highlighting the country’s flourishing production scene.

MAD Solutions offers annual in-kind awards that include either a $10,000 minimum guarantee for a feature-length fiction film or a $3,000 minimum guarantee for a feature-length documentary for marketing, publicity, and distribution in the Arab World, except for projects that already received funding from the company. 

The projects that have been selected for the Final Cut in Venice this year include AISHA CAN’T FLY AWAY by Morad Mostafa — which has already received funding from MAD Solutions and thus isn’t eligible for the award — alongside MY FATHER’S SCENT by Mohamed Siam, IN THIS DARKNESS I SEE YOU by Nadim Tabet, the first narrative film from Mozambique, THE PROPHET by Ique Langa, and the docufiction ANCESTRAL VISIONS OF THE FUTURE by Final Cut in Venice veteran Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese.

Also representing the female perspective this year are Egyptian filmmaker Sara Shazli with her debut feature-length documentary YOUR DAUGHTER and Belgian-Moroccan director Karima Saïdi with her second feature documentary THOSE WHO WATCH OVER.

Previous recipients of the MAD Award at Venice were Erige Sehiri’s UNDER THE FIG TREES, which world premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and won the EcoProd Jury Award; Ismael Ferrouki’s MICA, which screened at the Cinemania Francophone, El Gouna, and Angoulême Francophone film festivals; and Soudade Kaadan’s OBSCURE, which screened at the Copenhagen Documentary and Fribourg international film festivals. 

The grant award offered by MAD comes as part of the creative consultancy’s broader strategy to support Arab films through their different production stages internationally and regionally and to promote them in the long run.