Jalla! Jalla!

  • Josef Fares
  • Sweden
  • 2000.
  • 88'
  • Jalla! Jalla!

Roro and Måns are best friends who work at the city park management. They are carefree and enjoy their lives. Roro is originally from Lebanon and dotes on his Swedish girlfriend, whom he is reluctant to introduce to his traditional family. When he finally gathers the courage to do so, he finds out his family has arranged his marriage to a Lebanese girl, Yasmin. Måns, on the other hand, has his own set of problems. He suffers from erectile dysfunction and, avoiding to visit a doctor, turns to creative solutions which don’t seem to work. This is just the beginning of the protagonists’ romantic predicaments. The director Josef Fares is himself Lebanese, and it’s interesting that a lot of the cast is made up by his family members: father, mother, sister, grandmother, and many others.

Subtitles: HR

Josef Fares

Born in 1977. Lebanese-Swedish director. In 1998, he was accepted by the Dramatiska Institutet in Stockholm, becoming the youngest student of this prestigious film school. Prior to his feature debut Jalla! Jalla! he made around fifty short films with his friends, improvising the special effects, which earned him the nickname of “king of low-budget films”.

Jalla! Jalla!

Director
Josef Fares
Screenplay
Josef Fares
Cast
Fares Fares, Torkel Petersson, Tuva Novotny, Laleh Pourkarim, Leonard Terfelt, Sofi Ahlström-Helleday, Jan Fares, Benyam Eriksson
DOP
Aril Wretblad
Editing
Michal Leszczylowski, Andreas Jonsson
Producer
Anna Anthony
Production
Memfis Film, Film i Väst, Dramatiska Institutet
Festivals & Awards
Bermuda International Film Festival 2001 – Jury Prize; Bratislava International Film Festival 2001 – Audience Award