Palestinian Filmmaker Rakan Mayasi on His Search for Unconventional Stories and Portraying ‘Communities That Have Not Been on Film Before’

Oct 20, 2026 6:31am PT Palestinian Filmmaker Rakan Mayasi on His Search for Unconventional Stories and Portraying ‘Communities That Have Not Been on Film Before’

By Jay Weissberg

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Jay Weissberg

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Iconoclastic Palestinian filmmaker Rakan Mayasi’s debut feature “Yesterday the Eye Didn’t Sleep” made a splash in this year’s Un Certain Regard in Cannes with its powerful, poetic treatment of a Bedouin community in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. This week it plays in a competition slot at the El Gouna Film Festival, where Variety spoke to the director.

Inspired by Mayasi’s grandmother, it’s a story of two women who become pawns in a tribal blood feud, played out in a visionary style that owes much to Mayasi’s mentor Abbas Kiarostami, yet has its own rhythm and sensorial, at times almost feverish, point of view. Following its Cannes premiere the film has been warmly received at other festivals, and will be screening at Montpellier’s CineMed followed immediately by the Rome Film Festival, in their Best First Feature section. International sales are being handled by Salaud Morisset.

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