Lebanese Indie House Abbout Productions To Receive Locarno’s Producing Award

Abbout Productions, the independent Beirut-based production house led by Georges Schoucair and Myriam Sassine, will be handed the Raimondo Rezzonico Award for producing at this year’s Locarno Film Festival. 

The duo will receive the award on August 7. They will also present two of their titles, Costa Brava, Lebanon by Mounia Akl, and Memory Box by Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige.

Georges Schoucair became the CEO of Abbout Productions in 2004, and Myriam Sassine joined as lead producer in 2010. 

In recent years, Schoucair and Sassine have produced films such as Costa Brava, Lebanon (Venice Orizzonti, 2021), Memory Box (Berlinale Competition, 2021), and works by local filmmakers like Ahmad Ghossein, Mohamed Malas, Ghassan Salhab, Oualid Mouannes, Cyril Aris, Ely Dagher, Rana Eid, and Myriam El Hajj, whose Diaries from Lebanon premiered in Berlinale Panorama in 2024.

Schoucair and Sassine have also been prominent advocates for cinema in the MENA region. Schoucair played a pivotal role in the opening of Beirut’s Metropolis Cinema. Sassine co-founded the Maskoon Fantastic Film Festival, the only genre film festival in the region. Since 2021, she has also managed Aflamuna Connection, a Lebanese co-production platform for Arab filmmakers. 

Schoucair and Sassine will also take part in a public conversation at Forum @Spazio Cinema in Locarno on August 8. 

The Raimondo Rezzonico Award, handed out by the Municipality of Minusio, was created in 2002 in memory of the man who was President of the Festival from 1981 to 1999.

“The films Abbout have produced are a sign of a society that is vital, alive, and continues to look to the future with dogged confidence,” Giona A. Nazzaro, Artistic Director of Locarno, said in a statement. 

“Through their films, Georges and Myriam have been able to tell the story of a country able to come to terms with its history while simultaneously imagining a layered and multifaceted Lebanese identity. They have also launched a great many new talents in front of and behind the camera, helping to give Lebanon a new face, allowing it to meet its potential, and offering a complex portrait of the country that goes far beyond the trivializations of the violence of war. They have worked tirelessly in the pursuit of a fertile and generous dialogue.”