KISS ME NOT ON THE EYES (DUNIA)

NARRATIVE, Lebanon, 2005, 112 minutes; subtitled

Director/Writer/Set Designer: Jocelyne Saab
Executive Producer: Ismail Mourad

After studying literature at Cairo University, 23-year-old Dunia wants to become a professional dancer. She attends an audition for an Asian dance contest where she recites Arabian poetry without any body movement. She explains to the perplexed jury that a woman can't move her body or evoke acts of love when society asks women to hide their femininity. She is selected for the contest and meets Beshir, an intellectual and activist who will supervise her thesis on ecstasy in Sufi love poetry. Their attraction is mutual. This could be liberation for Dunia, but the constraints on women in Egyptian society goes deeper than she suspects.

2005 Montréal International Film Festival: American Grand Prize
2006 International Festival of Film, Fribourg Switzerland: Audience Award and Youth Jury Award
2006 Milan International Festival: Province of Milan Award
2006 Algarve, Portugal International Film Festival Mediterranean Award, Best Feature Film
2006 Sundance Film Festival: World Competition

Jocelyne Saab, a journalist and filmmaker, has directed over 20 documentary films shown worldwide on French and European channels, on NBC in the United States and NHK in Japan. To date, she has shot in Lebanon, Egypt, Iran, Kurdistan, Ex-Spanish Sahara, and Vietnam. She has written all of her films except SUSPENDED LIFE, written by Gerard Brach.
.