M Is Fo

The story of a Russian family living and dying through four wars: the Russian Civil War in 1920, the Great Patriotic War in 1942, the First Chechen War in 1996, and the Russian military intervention in Ukraine in 2017.

This short film is a captivating mix of emotions, genres, and tones, deliberating on love in the age of social media. Within the chaos that daily life supposes, the paths of two couples merge during an afternoon, embarking on a narrative and style hybrid that puts the need to love and the fear of commitment on the table. Memories, friendship, and disappointment converge in the drama of four millennials, forming a labyrinthine exploration of love.

1944. German Colonel Neuber is taken prisoner trying to cross the front-line but not before he hides stolen Soviet documents. The Germans send a team to recover the Colonel and the documents but Soviet intelligence are waiting for them.

Tadeusz, a junior high school student, visits to his forester grandfather who lives in an ancient forest. During one of the hunts, his grandfather tells him about the rumors circulating around about a treasure sunk in the lake.

Cinema Fouad is a documentary portrait of Khaled El Kurdi, a Syrian trans woman living in Beirut, where she earns a living as a domestic worker and belly dancer. Soueid shows us scenes of El Kurdi’s domestic world: eating, applying make-up, dancing in her bedroom, all while reflecting on her life and experiences. She expresses her desire to undergo gender reassignment surgery, and mourns the death of her lover, a Palestinian freedom fighter. She often alludes to the aggressions she faces outside of her home, and through her adept defiance in the face of some of Soueid’s more goading questions, we recognize the echoing of these aggressions in his role as interviewer.