Faris Alrjoob’s THE RED SEA MAKES ME WANNA CRY set to release on MUBI

Faris Alrjoob’s German-Jordanian short THE RED SEA MAKES ME WANNA CRY will be released on film streaming giant MUBI on April 20th making it the first Jordanian short film in MUBI’s library, which is good news for cinephiles, who can now easily access the film on the platform with just a click and a small subscription fee.

Commenting on this unique partnership, MAD Solutions’ co-founders Alaa Karkouti and Maher Diab said: “We’re ecstatic with our first collaboration with MUBI, the worldwide platform famous for its meticulous choices of their films’ quality. We’re proud this collaboration starts with THE RED SEA MAKES ME WANNA CRY that stole the spotlight on its world premiere at Cannes Film Festival and is also our second project with the director Faris Alrjoob.”

MUBI is a global streaming platform, production company, and film distributor founded in 2007. MUBI produces and theatrically distributes films by emerging and established filmmakers, which are exclusively available on its platform.

The globally-accessed platform is not just about discovering wonderful new cinema or classic masterpieces. It’s also about discussing and sharing these discoveries, which makes the platform view itself as a place where cinephiles can gather and talk about alternative endings, directors’ cuts, and whatever their hearts desire, because above all else, MUBI is a community of cinema lovers.

THE RED SEA MAKES ME WANNA CRY — which recently won the Best Connecting Cultures Film Award at the Ghent International Short Film Festival and the Gouna Film Festival’s Silver Star for Short Films — held its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival’s Quinzaine des Cinéastes and its Arab World premiere at Egypt’s Gouna Film Festival last year as well as shining in numerous renowned international film festivals worldwide.

The romantic thriller — which is one of the two first-ever Jordanian films to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival — follows a haunted Ida, who travels to the liminal site of her partner’s disappearance in an attempt to feel his presence one last time and to say goodbye.

THE RED SEA MAKES ME WANNA CRY is directed, written, and co-produced by Faris Alrjoob and co-written by Matthew LaPaglia, while Luisa Stricker and Luma Al Hamarneh co-produced it. It starrs burgeoning young Jordanian actor Mohamed Nizar, Clara Schwinning, and Emmy-nominated journalist-actor Ahmed Shihab Eldin, and Anwar Khalil. The short film was also lensed by Mahmoud Belakhel and edited by Benedikt Strick, with worldwide sales and distribution by MAD Solutions.

Faris Alrjoob is an interdisciplinary artist working within the fields of film, video art, and performance, based in Berlin, he is a graduate student at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne and previously at Emerson College in Boston.

In 2020, he directed his short film THE GHOSTS WE LEFT AT HOME, which world premiered at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen in Germany and screened at prestigious festivals like the Malmö Arab Film Festival, the Red Sea International Film Festival, and the Internationales Frauenfilmfestival.