Broken Keys, a film directed and written by Lebanese multi-award winning director Jimmy Keyrouz, was officially submitted to represent Lebanon at the Oscars.
Earlier this year, the film landed in the “first features” category among Cannes 2020 Official Selection. Now, Broken Keys has a shot at potentially getting officially selected to win the honor of Best International Feature Film.
The movie revolves around a young boy whose piano gets destroyed in a war between Iraq and Syria and finds himself unable to repair it due to extremist mentalities in the place he dwells in.
Broken Keys is based on a short film also directed by Keyrouz called Nocturne in Black that previously won multiple awards, including “Gold for Best Narrative at the Student Academy Awards in 2016.”
The cast of the film includes multiple big names in the Lebanese movie industry, such as Badih Abou Chakra, Adel Karam, Tarek Yaacoub, and Rola Beksmati.
If selected, it will be the third Lebanese film to be nominated for the Oscars after Ziad Doueiri’s The Insult in 2017 and Nadine Labaki’s Capernaum in 2018. It’s also worth noting this is Lebanon’s 16th Oscar entry.
The shortlist will be revealed on February 9, 2021.