Animation Film The Tower Commercially Releases in Tunisian Theaters Starting April 10

After a successful tour in international film festivals, the animation film The Tower by director Mats Grorud will commercially release for a week in Tunisia starting Wednesday, April 10, in three theatres; Ciné Madart in Carthage, Cinéma Amilcar - El Manar, and Pathé Tunis City in Tunis. This coincides with the film’s participation in the Metropolis Youth Film Festivalin Lebanon and the Boston Palestine Film Festival.

Most recently, TheTower screened at the Arab Film Festival Rotterdam. The filmreceived the Liv Ullmann Peace Prizeand the Professional Jury: 2^ndPrize for Best Animated Feature Film at the Chicago International Children's Film Festival. The film took part in different film festivals, including the Cairo International Film Festival, Marrakech International Film Festival, London Palestine Film Festival, Palestine Cinema Days, Annecy International Animated Film in France, Arab Film Festival in Famac, France, Busan International Film Festival, Helsinki International Film Festival, and European Film Festival in Ishbilia.

Written and directed by Mats Grorud, The Tower features the voices of RominaAdlKasravi, Mohamed Bakri, Najila Said,and Morad Hassan. The film is a French- Swedish-Norwegian coproduction that is distributed in the Arab world by MAD Solutions.

The film is following Wardi, an eleven-year-old Palestinian girl, who lives with her whole family in the refugee camp where she was born. She learns about her family's history through stories told to her by three earlier generations of refugees.

Mats Grorudis a Norwegian director and animator who studied Animation at VoldaUniversity College. He complimented his animation career with studies in Denmark, Beirut and Beijing. Mats directed the short films Santa Klaus and My Grandmother Beijing, in addition to animation films Kaja Polmar(2006) and Piotr Sapegin's Grandpais a raisin(2006).

Today, Matsruns his own company called NubbsjangsProductions, where he develops his own projects, does commissioned work and teaches animation. He has also worked on several documentary projects. In 2007,Grorudstarted working on his debut feature animated film, The Tower, along with producer Frank Søbstadat Tenk.tv.