Mad World, the global sales arm of pan-Arab indie outfit Mad Solutions, has acquired international rights to Egyptian director Mohamed Rashad’s “The Settlement” ahead of its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival.
Inspired by a true story, “The Settlement” – which will launch from Berlin’s new Perspectives section – follows two brothers, the 23-year-old troublemaker Hossam and 12-year-old Maro, who live in a marginalized community in Alexandria. After the death of their father in a factory workplace accident they are hired by the same factory as “compensation” for their loss in lieu of them pursuing legal action.
As they navigate their new jobs, they begin to question whether their father’s death was truly accidental and how to go about settling the matter.
The social thriller marks Rashad’s narrative feature film debut following his 2016 documentary “Little Eagles” which explored 1970s leftist activism in Egypt from the perspective of the filmmaker’s own family history.
Rashad underlined in a statement that it took five years to bring “The Settlement” to the big screen.
“Throughout the journey of the film, I was able to fulfill my ambitions, such as casting completely unknown actors and involving real workers in important roles and groups. I also filmed in real locations, capturing scenes in Alexandria that closely matched what I had envisioned, along with the industrial atmosphere that I find artistically rich,” he said.
“The Settlement,” which stars Adham Shoukry Ziad Islam, Hajar Omar, Mohamed Abdel Hady, and Emad Ghoneim, is lensed by cinematographer Mahmoud Lotfi (“Coming Forth by Day”) and edited by Heba Othman, whose credits include groundbreaking Sudanese drama “Goodbye Julia.”
The film is a joint production involving Egypt, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. The lead producer is Hala Lotfy of Hassala Films (Cairo) who co-produced with Etienne de Ricaud of Caractères Productions (Paris); Kesmat Elsayed of Seera Films GmbH (Berlin); and ART (Jeddah).
Lotfy pointed out that “while ‘The Settlement is undeniably an arthouse film, it certainly doesn’t have a low budget.” She called the production “a demanding but ultimately rewarding endeavor that involved on-location shoots across Cairo and Alexandria to stay true to its story and source material.”
“The Settlement” got financial support from the Berlinale World Cinema Fund and a slew of prestigious international funding bodies including the IFFR’s Hubert Bals Fund; the Doha Film Institute; the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture; the Red Sea Development Fund; the Fonds Image De La Francophonie Fund, and the El Gouna Film Festival’s CineGouna.
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