UPDATE: Costa Brava Lebanon, a feature film project co-written & directed by alumni Mounia Akl '17 and co-written by Clara Roquet '16, participated in the TorinoFilmLab's Feature Lab, where it won a 4 TFL Co-Production Award and Grant of € 200,000.
Costa Brava Lebanon tells the story of the Badri family, who live in the Lebanese mountains away from the rest of the country that is drowning in garbage and pollution. When the government decides to build a landfill right outside their house, they’re devastated. As Lebanon’s trash piles up at their doorstep, the hidden tensions among the family members arise.
Roquet's work has been recognized internationally. Her film El Adios won the 2016 BAFTA US Student Film Award, which she wrote and directed as part of her MFA coursework at Columbia. Because of this award and many others, El Adios was distributed by HBO. Prior to attending Columbia, Roquet co-wrote the feature film 10.000KM with director Carlos Marques-Marcet; they received a Gaudí Award for Best Screenplay for the film.
Akl, the co-writer, is the accomplished filmmaker behind Submarine, a short film that tells the story of a girl from Beirut, a city that is dealing with an ongoing garbage crisis. The film has been lauded internationally; it was selected for the highly competitive Cinefondation Competition at the 69th Cannes Film Festival, and it was an official selection at the Toronto International film Festival.
TorinoFilmLab is a year-round, international laboratory that supports emerging talents from all over the world – with special attention to those working on their first and second fiction feature films – through training, development, funding and distribution activities. It has supported the films of some of the most groundbreaking filmmakers in the world such as Ciro Guerra (Academy Award nominated director of The Embrace of the Serpent), Julia Docurnau (Raw), and Jonas Carpignano (A Ciambra).
