The Arabic remake of 2016 Italian comedy-drama film ‘Perfect Strangers’ will begin shooting on February 2, 2021 — and the cast has been revealed.
‘Perfect Strangers’ follows seven lifelong friends, who come together for a dinner and decide to share every text message, email and phone call they receive that evening to prove they have nothing to hide. Their plan ultimately backfires and unravels a web of secrets.
Filming on ‘Perfect Stranger’ in Arabic was postponed twice in 2020 “due to COVID and political turmoil in Lebanon.”
Now, Front Row Filmed Entertainment, Empire Entertainment and Film-Clinic have set a final shooting date and announced the cast.
The film will star Nadine Labaki, Mona Zaki, Adel Karam, Eyad Nassar, Diamand Bou Abboud and George Khabbaz.
Scriptwriters Gabriel Yammine and Wissam Smayra (also the director) are behind the Arabic adaptation.
The official description from Front Row reads: “Set in Lebanon in the midst of the Lebanese revolution and coping with the COVID pandemic, the story follows a group of seven long-time friends getting together for dinner. During the course of the meal they decide to play a game that involves them all placing their cell phones on the dinner table, and making all their phone calls and text messages available to one another. While the game at first is a playful exercise, things get decidedly more serious as untold secrets and acquaintances become public knowledge within the group.”
“We’ve seen Egyptian films. Lebanese Films. Saudi films. But never an Arab film,” said Gianluca Chakra, CEO of Front Row Filmed Entertainment. “The Middle East has never produced a successful pan-Arab film as audiences are different across each country and so is the audience. With a contained environment such as this one, we hope that by blending in Egyptian and Lebanese talent, who play longtime friends, we could break this mold and start off a new trend in Arab Cinema.”
The film is tentatively set to release in the fourth quarter of 2021 across the Middle East.
