Gay French Film The String Wins Best Picture At Frameline34 Gay And Lesbian Film Festival

The String, the awarding winning French drama set in modern-day Tunisia, directed by Tunisian filmmaker Mehdi Ben Attia and starring Antonin Stahly and Salim Kechiouche has won Best Picture at the Frameline34 Gay And Lesbian Film Festival.

Telling the story of the forbidden love of two men forced to deal with the oppression of Islamic moral code and the elitism of Western society, The String has also been highly praised by critics and audiences at its East Coast premiere at Philadelphia QFest in July and will be seen at the Rochester Lesbian & Gay Film & Video Festival and the Rehoboth Film Festival this fall.

Seeing Antonin Stahly as the lead playing Malik, a 30-year-old Parisian architect from a wealthy family, who returns home to Tunisia after his father, Abdelaziz, passes away, the film sees him having to go from living a promiscuous, open lifestyle in Paris to being pressured to change his ways by his overbearing mother Sara, played by Italian superstar Claudia Cardinale,and get married. Malik is completely against the idea. There’s just one problem – the kind of person they want him to marry is very different.

Soon feeling the intense strain of trying to hide his homosexuality from his mother and his North African coastal community, Malik’s inner turmoil soon sees him caught up in daily flashbacks about his father and psychotic episodes in which he envisions himself getting wrapped tightly in constricting pieces of string. Finding relief from this with his new boyfriend, Balil, a gorgeous and endearing handyman played by Salim Kechiouche, the film exposes the pressure of class warfare and Islamic mores as well as telling the engaging, thought-provoking tale of young love threatened by a rapidly changing culture.

The String will be available to order on October 19, 2010 and can be pre-ordered from Amazon .