‘The Sand Castle’ Producer on the Nadine Labaki Film’s Timely Parallels With Events in Syria and Gaza: ‘Everybody Is Just Looking for a Home’
variety.comNick Vivarelli International Correspondent U.S. director Matty Brown’s allegorical drama “The Sand Castle,” which sees Lebanese multi-hyphenate Nadine Labaki reunite on screen with young “Capernaum” siblings Zain and Reman Al Rafeea – who are both Syrian refugees – will be released globally on Jan.
24 by Netflix at a critical time in the Middle East. With Israel-Hamas ceasefire talks currently underway and uncertainties still looming for Syrian refugees after the fall of long-time ruler Bashar al-Assad, the fable-like film, which is told from the perspective of children, “has many interesting parallels with what’s happening not only on Syria but also in Palestine,” says New York-based producer Mandy Ward.
Ward is part of the “Sand Castle” production team alongside Houston King and Dubai-based Gianluca Chakra’s Front Row Filmed Entertainment and Mario Jr.
Haddad’s Empire Entertainment. “I think that this film was always told from a place of people who felt like they didn’t belong somewhere, and it was about the search for that,” Ward adds, noting that the tale of an Arabic family symbolically stuck on a seemingly idyllic island where they begin to uncover dark secrets stands for “what these [refugee] children are going through and the current stability of places like Syria.” “Everybody is just looking for home, and this film really embodies the forgotten,” Ward explains.
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