2019 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: #2. Oualid Mouaness – 1982

He might be a first time feature filmmaker, but Oualid Mouaness, a Lebanese short film helmer firmly transplanted in the US has been patiently building 1982 since circa 2011 – when the project was a Rawi/Sundance Screenwriting Fellow. Mouaness got his start wearing the producing hat shoring up with Rize (Sundance 2005), Kitchen Privileges (SXSW 2000) and a slew of music videos (Katie Perry, Justin Timberlake and Lana Del Rey) too lengthy to mention here. A Lebanese-U.S.-French-Qatari co-production, onlookers received a first update (Capernaum filmmaker Nadine Labaki is part of the foursome cast) way back in December of 2017, so Mouaness could easily preem in Park City or at a major international film festival.

Gist: Set in a school tucked safely in the mountains of Lebanon, “1982” is the tale of an 11-year-old boy named Wissam who is trying to drum up the courage to tell his classmate Joanna that he loves her. Before he can do so an air Israeli strike hits Beirut and shatters the school’s calm. Labaki palys Yasmine, Wissam’s teacher and “the witness of his innocent love and determination”. She is contending with her own share of problems that the war has brought on her family and on her relationship with fellow teacher Malek (Rodrigue Sleiman).

Production Co./Producers: Abbout Productions’ Georges Schoucair (Zama), Tricycle Logic’s Oualid Mouaness, Alix Madigan (Winter’s Bone), Myriam Sassine, Mad Dog Films’s Christopher Tricarico (May in Summer).

Prediction: World Cinema Dramatic Competition.

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. TBD (domestic). TBD (international)