Taste of Cement

Taste of Cement

In Beirut, Syrian construction workers are building a skyscraper while at the same time their own houses at home are being shelled. The Lebanese war is over but the Syrian one still rages on. The workers are locked in the building site. They are not allowed to leave it after 7 PM. The Lebanese government has imposed night-time curfews on the refugees. The only contact with the outside world for these Syrian workers is the hole through which they climb out in the morning to begin a new day of work. Cut off from their homeland, they gather at night around a small TV set to get the news from Syria. Tormented by anguish and anxiety, while suffering the deprivation of the most basic human and workers right, they keep hoping for a different life. Dwelling on the verge of film essay and poetry, Kalthoum’s latest film is a cinematically impressive and a remarkably personal testimony about the life in exile, confirming his reputation as one of the most original young filmmakers of his region.

  • Year:
    2017
  • Runtime:
    85
  • Country:
    Germany, Lebanon, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Qatar
  • Director:
    Ziad Kalthoum
  • Screenplay:
    Ziad Kalthoum, Ansgar Frerich, Talal Khoury
  • Dir. of Photography:
    Talal Khoury
  • Music:
    Sebastian Tesch
  • Editor:
    Alex Bakri, Frank Brummundt
  • Production:
    Bidayyat for Audiovisual Art, BASIS BERLIN Filmproduktion
  • Sales:
    Syndicado
  • Festivals:
    Visions du Réel 2017 (Sesterce d’Or la Mobilière for Best Feature Film), Mediterranean Film Festival 2017 (Grand Prix), Open City Doc Fest 2017 (Emerging Filmmaker Award), Sarajevo 2017, Jihlava 2017

Schedule:

11.11.2017 15:30 Kino Mladosť

About the Director:

Ziad Kalthoum

Ziad Kalthoum (1981, Homs, Syria) is a filmmaker holding a degree in film studies, currently based in Berlin. In his medium-length documentary Oh My Heart (2009) he portrayed a group of Kurdish women, who have chosen to live in a society without men. During the outbreak of the Syrian revolution he began working on his first feature film The Immortal Seargant (Al-Rakib Al-Khaled, 2014) while serving a compulsory military service. The film had its premiere at the Locarno Film Festival. Refusing to fight his own people, he deserted from the Syrian Army in 2013 and fled to Beirut where he started to work on Taste of Cement.