Last year, Lebanon scored their first ever Oscar nomination for foreign language film with “The Insult.” While no announcement has been made otherwise, hopefully, the country chooses actor-director Nadine Labaki’s harrowing and humanistic “Capharnaüm” as its entry.
“Capharnaüm” premiered earlier this year at the Cannes Film Festival, but what mostly put the film in headlines was that Labaki was just one of three female filmmakers in a lineup of 21 films in the festival’s competition. “Capharnaüm” proved to be a highlight of the festival and went on to score the Jury Prize. Our review mentioned that Labaki’s “docu-like, uber-realist filmmaking creates something undeniably striking,” and called it “her most personal and emotional film to date…”
The film, which mostly features non-professional actors, tells a politically-charged story about a child who sues his parents. We also heaped praises on the film’s star, non-actor Zain Alrafeea, calling him “a revelation as the energetic, foul-mouthed Zain, beautifully delivering a spontaneous energy that feels as though its plucked right off the streets moments before the cameras roll.” And Zain practically was plucked off the streets almost purely by fate. “The casting director found him in her search on the street. He was with his friends, playing, and she interviewed him for, like, five minutes. I think at the end of the first minute I understood that I had found him. ”
Where did the striking title of “Capharnaüm” come from? Labaki told Deadline that “in French, this word is used to signify chaos or disorder. Originally, it was the name of a village in Palestine, but in French literature it started to be used to signify hell… The title of the film came up even before I started writing it. It was very symbolic for me.”
“Capharnaüm” will be released in Lebanese theaters on September 20th and Sony Pictures Classics plans to open the film stateside later this December.
You can watch the trailer for the film below: