Mad Solutions Acquires Arab World Distribution Rights to the Feature Film Mafak

MAD Solutions has acquired the Arab world distribution rights to the feature film MAFAK (SCREWDRIVER) by Palestinian filmmaker Bassam Jarbawi. The film landed its world premiere as an official selection at 2018 Giornate Degli Autori in Venice and was the Opening Film of 2019's Toronto Palestine Film Festival this September and it also participated in the 3rd edition of  El Gouna Film Festival.

Written and directed by Bassam Jarbawi in his directing debut for a feature film, MAFAK follows Young Ziad who is imprisoned on the heels of an act of revenge assassinating an Israeli settler who shot his best friend dead. Released 15 years later, Ziad is trying to pick up his life, suffering from some form of PTSD, and hitches a ride that will return him to a more familiar life.

MAFAK is produced by Shrihari Sathe's New York-based production company Dialectic and Yasmine Qaddumi and Bassam Jarbawi's Palestinian production house Rimsh Film. MAFAK won the Best Film Award at Bosphorus International Film Festival in 2018, Arab Critics Award and Best Screenplay at the recently concluded Malmo Arab Film Festival. It received the Doha Film Institute Spring grant in 2016 and has been in on a world tour, screening at several international film festivals since its world premiere. The film screened at more than 50 film festivals including Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), Arab Film Festival in Rotterdam, Carthage Film Festival, Singapore International Film Festival, Washington DC International Film Festival, Durban International Film Festival, Galway Film Fleadh, Festival Ciné-Palestine, New York Human Rights Watch Film Festival, Dallas International Film Festival, and Festival International Cinema Mediterranean de Tetouan.

The film is headlined by a talented cast including Ziad Bakri (Blind Sun 2015), Areen Omari (The Other Son 2012), Jameel Khoury (Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan 2018), Amir Khoury (Fauda 2015), Mariam Basha and Yasmine Qaddumi (in her acting debut).

Bassam Jarbawi is a Palestinian filmmaker who holds a B.A. in Communication and Political Science from Macalester College, and an M.F.A. in Screenwriting and Directing from Columbia University in New York.   Bassam was a photographer during the second Palestinian Intifada. With many photography work under his belt, Bassam held many exhibits and presented his first documentary   Frequency (2004). In 2009, his short film Chicken Heads (2009) premiered at the New York Film Festival and won several awards at Aspen Shortsfest, Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF), Columbia University Film Festival, Mexico International Film Festival and National Board of Review (USA). MAFAK (Screwdriver) is Jabrawi's first feature film.