For six years now, the Porretta Terme Film Festival has been bringing to the screen a film that has not yet been released in Italy, most often from a film industry that is little known in our country, drawing from the best film festivals worldwide.
This year’s appointment is with the cinema of Abbe Hassan, Lebanese by origin but now an exponent of Swedish cinema, working on his first short film Exodus.
Exodus makes its national premiere at the 22nd Porretta Cinema Festival.
BIOGRAPHY
Abbe Hassan was co-producer of the critically acclaimed feature film A Hustler’s Diary (2017), which became one of the most successful Swedish films of that year. He has directed several short films, the latest of which is Gold (2017), which won “Best Short Film” at the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival Kids, and the Grand Short Film Prize at the Seoul Guro International Kids Film Festival 2018. Hassan’s debut feature film, Exodus, opened the Gothenburg Film Festival in 2023 and received excellent reviews. 2020 saw the premiere of A Hustler’s Diary – The Series, an independent series based on the successful film of the same title. The popular dramedy is directed by Hassan and Ivica Zubak. Hassan is also the director of SVT’s new comedy drama, Älskade Samir [Dear Samir], which premiered in May 2023.
In his films, Hassan strives to portray an intriguing and true-to-life image of contemporary society, working with original voices and stories to combine quality with commercial appeal. In addition to working with feature and short films, Hassan has produced over sixty commercials in the past seven years and is one of the founders of the production company Indian Summer Film.