Regional celebrities descended upon the Venice Film Festival red carpet for the worldwide premieres of Egyptian film “Amira” and Lebanese feature “Costa Brava, Lebanon.”
The Mounia Akl-directed “Costa Brava, Lebanon” brought together a handful of famous faces, including Lebanese actress and filmmaker Nadine Labaki, Nadia Charbel and Palestinian actor Saleh Bakri, who also star in the film, for its Sept. 5 debut.
The family drama tells the story of a couple who decide to escape the pollution of Beirut with their children for an idyllic, isolated life in the Lebanese mountains, until one day the government decides to build a garbage landfill right beside their house.
Meanwhile, Egypt’s “Amira” made its global premiere at the 78th edition of the world’s oldest film festival on Sept. 4.
Directed by Mohamed Diab (“Clash,” “678”), the film revolves around Amira, a 17-year-old Palestinian who has gone through life believing she was conceived with the smuggled bodily fluid of a Palestinian prisoner serving a life sentence in an Israeli jail.
The film, which is set in Palestine’s West Bank, features a stellar pan-Arab cast, including Jordanian star Saba Mubarak, Palestinian-Israeli actor Ali Suliman, and emerging Jordanian actress Tara Abboud, who landed her first leading role as Amira.
Both “Amira” and “Costa Brava, Lebanon” are set to show at the Toronto International Film Festival, which kicks off on Friday.
