Kino Lorber has acquired North American distribution rights to Elite Zexer’s “Sand Storm,” Deadline has reported. The Israeli drama won the World Cinema Grand Jury Dramatic Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in January.
The story, Deadline writes, “centers on Jalila (Ruba Blal), a 42-year-old Bedouin woman pretending to be happy as she hosts her husband’s second marriage to a bride who is 20 years his junior. Meanwhile, their 18-year-old daughter Layla (Lamis Ammar) is pretending for a very different reason: Her secretive forbidden liaison with a strange man has just been unveiled. The women try to cope with their new reality in their own individual way, but eventually they realize they must join forces in order to survive.”
“The biggest challenge I faced was making a film about a culture that is not my own,” Zexer told Women and Hollywood. “The traditions, beliefs, customs, language — all were very different from mine. While understanding that this is something I could never bypass or ignore, and by this I mean that this film will always be from an outsider, I still wanted to give it my best shot and have it feel as if it were an internal voice.”
“This is a subtle, intelligent, and incredibly cinematic portrayal of a mother-daughter relationship and their struggle to re-define their place in a world bound by tradition and changing by the minute,” Kino Lorber CEO Richard Lorber said. “We’re incredibly proud to bring this stunning directorial debut to North American cinemas this year, and we believe the film could be a major contender for this year’s Academy Awards.”
“Sand Storm” will open September 28 at New York’s Film Forum and expand during the fall.
