Archive of films Sabah / Sabah

Canada
2005, 90 min

Section: Focus on Canadian Film: Beginning of the 3rd Millennium
Year: 2005

Sabah, a 40-year-old Muslim living in Canada, falls in love with a Canadian. She is fairly panic-stricken about how her family will react, and the man’s offer to accept Islam into his life somehow doesn’t ease her mind....

Synopsis

The film focuses on a short span of time in the life of 40-year-old Muslim Sabah who lives in a large Canadian city with her many relatives. Her brother rules over the entire family with an iron hand; after the death long ago of her father only various generations of women remain. Her brother respects the observance of all Muslim religious and moral tenets, including the strict prohibition against relationships with men of another faith. The youngest generation has already figured out several tricks for getting out of arranged partnerships, but her brother cruelly proclaims her dead when the diffident and honest Sabah admits to a secret relationship with a kindly Canadian. The film is a light tale on the theme of racial and religious intolerance, this time viewed from an unusual angle.

About the director

Ruba Nadda (b. 1972, Montreal) is a Canadian director of Syrian-Palestinian descent. Her parents settled in Canada in 1964 and her two younger sisters act in her films. In the past three years since studying English literature at York University in Toronto and attending a two-month course in filmmaking at New York University, she has made 12 short films. Before shooting Sabah (2005), she debuted with the feature I Always Come to You (2000). All her work deals with the daily lives of Arab women and the problems they face. Arab immigration to the West is also a recurring theme, and the director investigates how different generations of newcomers integrate into a foreign culture. She is an independent filmmaker and usually ends up financing her low-budget movies herself. She has also written a short story collection entitled Daughters of Palestine.

Contacts

Celluloid Dreams
2, rue Turgot, 75009, Paris
France
Tel: +33 149 700 370
E-mail: [email protected]
www: www.celluloid-dreams.com

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About the film

Color, 35 mm

Section:	Focus on Canadian Film: Beginning of the 3rd Millennium

Director:	Ruba Nadda
Screenplay:	Ruba Nadda
Dir. of Photography:	Luc Montpellier
Music:	Geoff Bennett, Longo Hai, Ben Johannesen
Editor:	Teresa Hannigan
Producer:	Tracey Boulton
Production:	TL Boulton Productions
Cast:	Arsinée Khanjian, Shawn Doyle, Fadia Nadda, Jeff Seymour, Kathryn Winslow, David Alpay
Contact:	Celluloid Dreams

www:	www.sabahthemovie.com

Guests

Brigitte Hubmann

Film Institution Rep.

Ruba Nadda

Arsinée Khanjian

Actress

Jean Claude Mahé

Film Institution Rep.

Sébastien Chesneau

Distributor, Sales Agent