09/01/2025 – Hiam Abbass and Mohamat Amine Benrachid headline the filmmaker’s new film, a production managed by Easy Riders Films
Actress Hiam Abbass and actor Mohamat Amine Benrachid
Selected twice for the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight (in 2004 with In the battlefields [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] and in 2007 with A lost man [+lire aussi :
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fiche film]) and once in competition at Locarno (in 2011 with the film TV Beyrouth Hotel) before staging Fear of nothing [+lire aussi :
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interview : Danielle Arbid
fiche film] (Cannes 2020 label and in competition in San Sebastián in 2020), the Franco-Lebanese filmmaker Danielle Arbid filming of his new film began on January 6: Only the rebels (Love Conquers All).
At the head of the bill stand out the Palestinian Hiam Abbas (nominated at Lumière 2018 for best actress for A Syrian family [+lire aussi :
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interview : Philippe Van Leeuw
fiche film] and in the same category at the European Film Award 2008 for The Lemon Trees [+lire aussi :
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fiche film]recently appreciated in the series Succession and the documentary Bye Bye Tiberiade [+lire aussi :
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interview : Lina Soualem
fiche film] and soon in French cinemas in The Last Breath [+lire aussi :
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interview : Costa-Gavras
fiche film]) et Mohamat Amine Benrachid (noted in Noah’s Ark).
Written by Danielle Arbid, the screenplay sees Suzanne, a widow in her sixties, meet Osmane one evening in Beirut… He is young, black, Sudanese, an undocumented migrant. She is white, Lebanese of Palestinian origin, twice his age… They fall in love. Lebanon is on the edge of the precipice. Television news and social networks continually pour out terrifying news. No matter, Osmane moves in with Suzanne. While their love triggers an outcry, in the heart of the surrounding chaos, Suzanne and Osmane resist…
Filming was to begin in Beirut at the end of November 2024 and preparation was already underway when the bombings made this filming unthinkable. The director therefore rewrote the script and imagined a system consisting of rear-projecting onto a screen in the studio the settings filmed in Lebanon by a small team and having the actors perform in front of this screen, taking on the artifice.
Only the rebels is produced by Omar El Kadi et Nadia Turincev for the Parisian company Easy Riders Films, and co-produced by Georges Schoucair for the Lebanese structure Abbout Productions and by Ziad Srouji for Rise Studios (United Arab Emirates). Pre-purchased by ART for the Middle East, the feature film also benefited from the support of the Hubert Bals + Europe Fund, the Fonds Image de la Francophonie and the Red Sea Souk Development Award. The 21 days of filming will take place at Studio de la Montjoie, in Saint Denis, in the Paris region, with Céline Bozon (nominated for the 2018 Lumière prize in his specialty for Felicity [+lire aussi :
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interview : Alain Gomis
fiche film]) to the direction of photography. French distribution will be managed by JHR Films.
For the record, Easy Riders Films is developing Alicantethe first feature fiction project of Lina Soualem (ArteKino International prize last month at the Ateliers de l’Atlas – read the news).
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