The Tower - film screening and panel discussion
February 7 2019
The Fritt Ord Foundation Competition for Upper Secondary School and Tenk.tv invite the public to a screening of the animation film “The Tower” (2018) – and to a discussion with the filmmakers Mats Grorud and Frode Søbstad.
TIME: Thursday, 7 February, 6 p.m. – 8 p.m.
VENUE: Aurora Cinema Fokus, Tromsø
Mads Gilbert, Kaya Marie Hansen and Tarek Alhindi will also be on the panel. Gilbert is a physician who has been actively involved in the Palestinians’ cause in the Middle East for many years. Kaya Marie Hansen is a pupil at Kongsbakken Upper Secondary School and will discuss her response to the film. Attorney Tarek Alhindi is a Palestinian refugee who grew up in Syria and now lives in Tromsø.
The topics for the panel discussion will include:
- Why and how the filmmakers worked on the film?
- How to tell stories from the Middle East, given that the parties take such different views of the conflict?
- Documentary animation film – what are the strengths and weaknesses of combining the two genres?
The Tower is a warm, exciting story about the 11-year-old girl Wardi and her grandfather Sidi, who live together in a high tower in a refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon. Ever since Sidi arrived in the refugee camp in 1948, he has clung to the hope of returning to his dear Palestine, but now time is running out. The film takes us along on Wardi’s journey into the past through the stories of the four generations who live in the tower, as they embark on a quest for Sidi’s lost hope and Wardi’s own future.
The film is based on real stories gathered from interviews, conversations and observations by director and scriptwriter Mats Grorud, while he lived in a refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon.