Gladys Joujou

Editor

Biography

Gladys Joujou is a well respected film editor based in Paris, France. She began her career over 10 years ago and has worked on numerous feature length and short narrative and documentary films. She is fluent in French, English and Arabic. Her credits include: Oliver Stone’s Alexander with Angelina Jolie and Colin Farrell, Michel Kammoun’s award winning film, Falafel, and Randall Wallace’s The Man in the Iron Mask with Leonardo DiCaprio, and Jacques Doillon’s Raja.

Filmography

6.0

Alexander

Alexander, the King of Macedonia, leads his legions against the giant Persian Empire. After defeating the Persians, he leads his army across the then known world, venturing farther than any westerner had ever gone, all the way to India.

6.4

In Syria

A mother attempts to keep her family safe as war rages and a sniper lies in wait outside her home.

5.4

Raja

Raja is a nineteen year old orphan literally and figuratively scarred by life. Fred is an emotionally bankrupt westerner living amid his plush gardens and palm trees. Set against the backdrop of contemporary Marrakech, Raja is a cross-cultural drama about a wealthy middle-aged Frenchman's complex relationship with this poor local girl. Fred's attempts to seduce Raja, and their mutual attempts at manipulation, are fractured by their gross disparity of income, age and cultural sophistication.

4.5

Mother Valley

In 1958, while revolution is rumbling in Beirut, three sisters spend their holidays in an isolated village of Lebanese mountains: rebellious Nada, romantic Eva, and the eldest Layla, a good woman, beloved by everyone. But the war threatens and the sudden entrance of two French summer vacationers leads Layla to revolt against patriarchal society.

N/A

Blue Has No Borders

A young filmmaker is determined to know her neighbours in the port town of Folkestone. But in the aftermath of Brexit, building new relationships isn’t easy.

7.9

Bye Bye Tiberias

In her early twenties, Hiam Abbass left her native Palestinian village to follow her dream of becoming an actress in Europe, leaving behind her mother, grandmother, and seven sisters. Thirty years later, her filmmaker daughter Lina returns with her to the village and questions for the first time her mother’s bold choices, her chosen exile and the way the women in their family influenced both their lives.

8.0

Sudan, Remember Us

In a Sudan torn apart by years of war, this documentary immerses us in the daily fight of young Sudanese. Their stories, both harrowing and inspiring, remind us of the ability to find hope even in the darkest of circumstances. This is a call to attention to a forgotten crisis, and a tribute to the power of creativity as a tool of survival and resistance.

7.2

Talking About Trees

Filmmakers Ibrahim, Suliman, Eltayeb and Manar, close friends for many years, left their motherland in the sixties and seventies to study film abroad and founded the Sudanese Film Group in 1989. After years of distance and exile, they are reunited, hoping to finally make their old dream come true: to bring back cinema to Sudan by reopening the Halfaia Cinema, a dilapidated theater in Khartoum.

4.3

Falafel

Everything bad that can happen on the way to a party happens to young Tou on this nighttime trip though Beirut.

6.0

Beirut Phantom

Late in the 1980s it seems like the Lebanese conflict will never end. Khalil returns to Beirut after many years. Ten years earlier, during a battle, he took advantage of the confusion and pretended he was dead.

6.1

Ghost Hunting

A set-up for an experiment in an empty room. Former inmates reconstruct an Israeli secret service interrogation centre. These Palestinian men use role play to come to terms with their memories and the humiliation they have experienced.

10.0

Behind the Lines

Amany Al-Ali stands out as one of Syria's few female cartoonists, residing in her father's home in Idlib, the last city unconquered by Assad's forces. Like her remaining neighbours she's submitted to relentless Russian airstrikes and caught between advancing troops and extremist groups. Despite acclaim for her art, she faces threats, condemnation, and degradation, causing her to contemplate leaving. Ironically, her artwork has graced galleries in France and Italy but never received exposure within Syria's borders. The film captures her endeavor to organize her inaugural exhibition in Idlib. This experience compels her to confront the harsh realities of a city defined by bombings and male interference. While organizing drawing lessons for women and girls, comforting her young niece, and sharing her story with the documentary crew, Amany's outlook on the future gradually erodes.

6.5

Terra incognita

In Beirut, the destinies of several thirtysomethings (an architect, a tour guide, a mystic, a radio operator, and an exile returned home) collide.

N/A

Ring of fire

Ring of fire keeps a sense of menace to the end, the atmosphere is tense. There is no safe haven, and Beirut of yesterday becomes a chilling image of our world at war today .

N/A

La route du Nord

Karim, in his forties, who has lived in France since his teenage years, returns to Lebanon to transfer the remains of his father, who died during the war, from Beirut to his native village.

N/A

Stable Unstable

In an apartment building in Beirut, on the last day of the year, seven characters start their day by visiting their psychologist as part of the weekly ritual. On that couch in their psychologist's office, they face themselves and their loved ones in trying to define what is most important to them. Each of them, from the patients to the residents of the building, has a different story to share, inner secrets and hidden wishes. All keep to themselves, except for the porter Abou Karim, who extends his presence and allows himself to interfere in the lives of others and in their destinies.

8.0

Tangier, the Burners' Dream

Tangier has an open identity on the Strait of Gibraltar. The border here is a presence: it is water. Opposite, Spain. Candidates for illegal departure flock without interruption to Tangier. The film follows the adventure of a few ready to "burn" their identity, to cross or die...

7.0

Where Should the Birds Fly?

The film tells the compelling and moving stories of two remarkable young women living in Gaza and the struggle of Gazans trying to maintain their humanity and humor while hoping to find some sense of normality in a world that is anything but normal.

N/A

Kings and Extras: Digging for a Palestinian Image

The films in the PLO Media Unit were supposed to show a self-determined image of Palestinian reality – and they went missing during the Israeli invasion of Beirut in 1982. In a « road movie » from Palestine to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, director Azza El-Hassan follows the contradicting and confusing clues as to the whereabouts of the lost archive.

8.5

A Golden Life

In Burkina Faso, young men look under the earth for gold – and a better future. As a result, 16-year-old Rasmané barely seems like a teenager any more. This mainly observational film follows him into the 100-metre abyss of small-scale mining.