Rakan Mayasi brings Bekaa Valley debut from Cannes to El Gouna

Palestinian filmmaker Rakan Mayasi has carried his debut feature Yesterday the Eye Didn't Sleep from Cannes to Egypt's El Gouna Film Festival, where it plays in competition.

Mayasi discussed the film with Variety at El Gouna. The film had its premiere in Un Certain Regard, the Cannes sidebar devoted to distinctive new voices and unusual stories, before travelling on to Karlovy Vary.

The story centres on two Bedouin sisters caught as pawns in a tribal blood feud. It is set inside a Bedouin community in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, and follows the search for Gamra, a young woman accused of setting fire to a man's car. Her sister Rim is the other central figure.

Mayasi said the project began with his grandmother. He wanted to capture a world where reality and myth sit side by side, where a woman's absence exposes the invisible rules that hold a community together. The Cannes Festival describes the film as a story about women who carry too much, men who speak in codes and a land that holds its breath.

The production stayed close to its setting. It was shot on location in the Bekaa Valley, and Mayasi has described having to repeat takes twice because explosion sounds drowned out dialogue. The cinematographer was Pôl Seif.

For audiences new to the festival circuit, that kind of shoot is common for first features built outside studios. Small crews work in real places, with sound and light they cannot control, and the festival premiere becomes the shop window for distributors.

International sales, meaning the licensing of the film to distributors country by country, are handled by Salaud Morisset. After El Gouna, the film is scheduled for Montpellier's CineMed followed by the Rome Film Festival in its Best First Feature section.