Monika Borgmann and Lokman Slim’s documentary Tadmor will be released in French cinemas on June 5th.
The film gives voice to a group of 22 Lebanese ex-prisoners, determined to speak out about their long years in prison in Palmyra (Syria), after the popular uprising against the Syrian regime in 2011.
In a series of individual and collective stories of torture and survival, they publicly testify to the systematic use of torture in one of Bashir al-Assad’s most terrible jails and the humiliation they endured for many years. To overcome their trauma, they rebuilt the prison in an abandoned school near Beirut, and act out the roles of victims and executioners.
Monika Borgmann and Lokman Slim have collaborated before, creating a production company, UMAM Productions, in 2001 and then co-directing Massaker in 2004 (selected at PriMed 2006). They began their research for Tadmor in 2012.
Their new film has already won numerous awards at festivals, such as the Sesterce d’Argent and the Jury Special Mention at the 2016 Visions du réel, and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Political Film Award at the Hamburg Filmfest, also in 2016.
Distributed in France by Vendredi Distribution, Tadmor was produced by Films de l’étranger (France), GoldenEggProduction (Switzerland) and UMAM productions (Lebanon).
View the trailer:
Sources: http:/www.film-documentaire.fr, https://www.tadmor-themovie.com, http://www.allocine.fr
