AVE MARIA part of the Short Films Competition at Cannes Film Festival

Helmed by Basil Khalil

AVE MARIA part of the Short Films Competition at Cannes Film Festival

Cannes Film Festival revealed the line-up of films for its Short Film Competition this year including Basil Khalil's AVE MARIA. Competing against 9 films , AVE MARIA will have its world premiere in this year's edition of the festival which will run between May (13- 24) 2015.

Running for 14 minutes, AVE MARIA tells the story of the silent lifestyle of five nuns living in an isolated convent in the West Bank. Their daily routine of silence is disrupted when a family of Israeli settlers crash their car outside the convent. The Sabbath is approaching and they need to go home urgently, however because of the Sabbath laws, the Israelis can't use technology such as telephones to call for assistance, so they find themselves at the mercy of a group of nuns who have taken a vow of silence.

AVE MARIA is Latin for "Hail Mary", a traditional Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox prayer. Starring Maria Zreik, Huda Al Imam, Shady Srour, Ruth Farhi and Maya Koren, the film is written by Basil Khalil and Daniel Yanez.

Basil was born and raised in Nazareth, to a Palestinian father and an English mother. He studied for an MA at Screen Academy Scotland, then worked on television productions in London while developing a comedy feature screenplay titled A Gaza Weekend which took part in the Torino Film Lab and the Sundance Institute/Rawi Screenwriter's Lab. He worked as a 2nd assistant director in the film Divine Intervention (2002) with the award-winning director Elia Suleiman and his directorial debut was the short film Ping Pong Revenge in 2005, and in 2006 he presented the documentary Replay Revenge.

AVE MARIA was produced by Paris-based Incognito Films and co-produced by Flying Moon Filmproduktion with the support of the German fund Robert Bosch Stiftung.