Bitter days
| Bitter Days | |
|---|---|
| Youm Muur W Youm Amar | |
| Directed by | Amjad Al Rasheed |
| Produced by | Mervat Aksoy |
| Screenplay by | Kasem Khasa |
| Starring |
|
| Music by | Ehab Abu Hammad |
| Cinematography | Samer Nimri |
| Edited by | Fadi.G Haddad |
Production company | |
Release date | |
| Country | Jordan |
| Language | Arabic (English titles and subtitles) |
Search Bitter days on Amazon.
Bitter Days (aka Youm Muur W Youm Amar) is an award-winning Jordanian short drama film directed by Amjad Al Rasheed,[1] produced by Mervat Aksoy, and starring Tala Abu Najem, Yasmeen Assad, Mervat Aksoy, and Ahmed Khateeb. The film revolves around a 12-year-old poor girl who works as a shoe-cleaner in Jordan, in order to support her family, her sick mother and her younger sister. The girl tries to escape from her stressful life by sniffing shoe-adhesive in order to forget poverty.[2]
Plot
| “Working with a script that has to be shot in different locations was a bit challenging, especially that we were located in the small coastal city of Aqaba with very limited resources. We had to create the atmosphere of the space where the main character’s imagination takes place, and also shoot in crowded streets, poor neighbourhoods, and the hiding place of the main character, creating the illusion in sound design that the space is near to a railway. Because this project was a student film, we didn’t have access to crowds, but we managed to use the existing crowd in the streets as background extras. Another challenge was working with children between the age of 4 and 12, having to keep their look continuous for 2-3 days” |
| — Production Designer ( Nadia Eliewat) on what were some difficulties faced while shooting "Bitter Days" |
Bitter Days is a Jordanian fictional narrative that takes place in Amman, Aqaba, which speaks about a young girl named Asma (Tala Abu Najem) who is poor and whose job is to maintain shelter and food for her sick mother (Mervat Aksoy) and younger sister Reem (Yasmeen Assad). By working as a shoe cleaner, Asma shows responsibility with everything since a young age and looks after her mother as she provides her medications and while doing all that she faces so many consequences at work yet never complains about it as her main goal is to maintain her family safe. As Asma's mother’s medication is finished, her mother informed her to take Reem down to work with her to help Asma maintain more money in order to get the medications required for her mother. As this was a bad idea for Asma because her sister Reem is young and likes to run around and working in the streets isn’t very safe for a young girl like her, Asma had no other choice but to command her mother’s orders and take Reem with her. Asma asked Reem to wait for her and distract herself with the paintings until Asma escapes to one of the corners in the street to sniff shoe-adhesive in order to forget her stressful life. While sniffing, she had an image of Reem getting hurt as in reality Reem was getting taken by the rapist. Asma quickly gets up from the zone and rushes to her sister hoping nothing happened to her, once she arrived she snatched her sister’s hands from the rapist and started raging at the guy as he just pushes her down and throws money at her as she’s some trash.
Cast
- Tala Abu Najem as Asmaa
- Yasmeen Assad as Reem
- Mervat Aksoy as Mother
- Aladin Qaraqish as Abu Samer
- Ahmad Khateeb as Man
Production
Bitter Days is a movie produced by the Red Sea institute of cinematic arts (RSICA) in 2010. It took place in the streets of Jordan (Aqaba).
- Produced by: Mervat Aksoy
- Cinematography by: Samer Nimri
- 2nd unit cinematography by : Said Najmi
- Production Design: Nadia Eliewat
- Edited by: Fadi.G Haddad
- Music composer by: Ehab Abu Hammad
Awards
Bitter Days is an award-winning Jordanian short film; it was awarded in several countries.
- Won the Brass Aleph Award for short Films at the Beirut International Film Festival Lebanon (2010).
- Won Best Short Narrative Award at Zayed University Film Festival Abu Dhabi (2010).[3]
- Official Selection at Durban International Film Festival, South Africa, (2010).
- Official Selection Oran Arab Film Festival Information, Algeria (2010).[4]
References
- ↑ McGinley, Shane. "Jordanian film industry highlighted by Abu Dhabi film fest". Arabian Business Publishing. Retrieved 1 April 2015.
- ↑ "Bitter Days - Amjad Al Rasheed". Arabic Short Films Blog. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
- ↑ "Zayed University Film Festival announces winners". Zayed University. Retrieved 1 April 2015.
- ↑ "Bitter Days a short Jordanian film directed by Amjad Al Rasheed". Bitterdays002. Retrieved 1 April 2015.
This article "Bitter days" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
