Cyril Aris is a Lebanese Director & Screenwriter, based in New York and Beirut.
His debut feature documentary, The Swing (2018) premiered at the 53rd Karlovy Vary IFF, receiving positive reviews with The Hollywood Reporter calling it ‘Intimate and moving’, in ‘this meditation on truth, love and lies in the face of illness and death’. It won the El-Gouna Bronze Star Award, the jury prize at Rome's Medfilm Festival, and awards at London’s Open City Docs and the Budapest International Documentary Festival.
His last fiction short film, The President’s Visit (2017), premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), won the US National Board of Review (NBR) grant award, was shortlisted for a student BAFTA, won the Muhr jury prize at the Dubai IFF, and the oscar-qualifying grand jury prize at the Nashville Film Festival. It played in over 60 film festivals worldwide.
Previous credits include short film Siham (2013), jury award at the Palm Springs ShortFest, LBC’s TV series Beirut, I Love You (2011, 2012), and Yahoo’s web-series Fasateen (2012), which both gathered several million views.
Producing credits include short film Submarine (2016), directed by Mounia Akl, official selection at the 69th Cannes Film Festival (Cinefondation competition), as well as TIFF, SxSW and over 100 festivals worldwide. It won the Jury Award in Dubai and was Staff picked by Vimeo, receiving 350,000+ views.
Commercial credits include branding videos, fashion films and ads for clients like Google, YouTube Music, Sephora, Sandra Mansour, Michelin, Nintendo for employers like VICE Media, 1st Ave Machine, Complex Media and documentaries for VICE Films, Technicolor, Refinery29, UNHCR, UNESCO, DailyMail TV and others.
Aris holds an MFA from Columbia University in the City of New York, and has taught Film at Columbia University, NHSI at Northwestern University and Barnard College, and is currently in development for his first fiction feature, ‘It’s a Sad and Beautiful World ’, winner of the ART award and Paris’ Cité-des-Arts residency award at the 4th Beirut Cinema Platform.