Capernaum (2018) on Netflix
Zain El Hajj, twelve, is serving time in Roumieh Prison and is suing his parents over the life they gave him. Months earlier, the boy was living in a Beirut slum.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb8.4/10126,941 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes90%
Trailer
Plot summary
Zain El Hajj, twelve, lives with his parents, Souad and Selim, and several younger siblings in a Beirut slum, where the children earn money in small schemes rather than attend school. Zain also runs deliveries for Assad, the family's landlord, who owns a market stall. When Zain learns his parents have married his eleven-year-old sister Sahar to Assad, he runs away, rides a bus to Luna Park, and meets Rahil, an Ethiopian cleaner, who lets him sleep in her tin shack if he watches her baby son, Yonas.
Cast
- Elias Khouryas The Judge
- Nour el Husseinias Assaad
- Joseph Jimbazianas Cockroach Man / Harout
- Yordanos Shiferawas Rahil
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Capernaum (2018)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Producer Khaled Mouzanar took out a mortgage on his house to help raise the budget for Capernaum, which was made for $4 million.
- Shooting Capernaum lasted six months and produced 500 hours of footage; Nadine Labaki and her editors spent a year and a half cutting it down to two hours from a first version that ran 12 hours.
- Capernaum became the highest-grossing Arabic film and the highest-grossing Middle Eastern film of all time, overtaking the $21 million record of Nadine Labaki's earlier film Where Do We Go Now? (2012).
- Zain Al Rafeea also helped shape the film's dialogue, drawing on his own experiences as a refugee living in a slum.
- Capernaum won the Jury Prize at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, where it competed for the Palme d'Or, and received a 15-minute standing ovation after its premiere on 17 May 2018.
