The star and director of the Lebanese film Ghadi talk about the story’s universal message of tolerance

When you think of Lebanese cinema, chances are you have one of two very distinct images in your mind.

Gritty, festival-pleasing, war-inspired dramas, such as West Beirut and Under the Bombs. Or the breezy, woman-centric comedies, including Caramel and Where Do We Go Now? by the director Nadine Labaki.

Enter Ghadi, stage left. After modest commercial success at home – the film opened in October 2013 and clocked 77,000 admissions during a 10-week run, making it Lebanon’s seventh biggest release of the year – the film has enjoyed a sudden, surprise rise to fame on the festival circuit.

Since its international premiere at South Korea’s Busan International Film Festival in October last year, Ghadi has won three audience-choice awards – at Busan, at Germany’s International Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg and at the Arabian Sights Film Festival in the United States.

It was also Lebanon’s official Oscar entry (although it didn’t make the Academy’s shortlist).

And now Ghadi is getting an international cinema release, starting with the UAE, where it will be released tomorrow. Cinema rights have already been sold in Spain, Poland and South Korea, and an on-demand deal has been signed in South America.

Set in a small, rural and distinctly Lebanese Christian village, the film is the heart-warming story of Ghadi (Emmanuel Khairallah), a young boy with Down syndrome. When his family are threatened with eviction from their home by intolerant neighbours who are tired of the noises he makes, Ghadi’s parents concoct a (largely successful) plan to convince the village-folk that their son is, in fact, an angel.

On paper, it sounds ridiculous. But Ghadi is directed with an infectiously light-hearted zing, and the idea of a self-contained, gossip-fuelled provincial community is far from unique to Lebanon.

Original article by Rob Garratt

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The star and director of the Lebanese film Ghadi talk about the story’s universal message of tolerance