CYRIL ARIS

Cyril Aris is a Lebanese Director & Screenwriter and a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences®.

His latest feature documentary Dancing on the Edge of Volcano (2023), recipient a post-production grant from the Sundance Institute in the US and the Robert Bösch FilmPrize in Germany, premiered in the Main Competition of the 57th Karlovy Vary IFF where it won a jury special mention. It had its UK premiere in competition at the 67th BFI London Film Festival and its North American premiere in competition at DOC NYC, and played at CPH DOX in Denmark. It won the Audience Award at the 38th Mostra de Valencia in Spain, the Audience Award at the 64th Festival de Popoli in Italy, the Best Film award at the 29th Medfilm Festival in Rome, the Viewfinder Main Prize at the 20th Verzio Human Rights Festival in Budapest, and a jury special mention at the 45th Cinémed in France.

His debut feature documentary, The Swing (2018) premiered at the Karlovy Vary IFF, and won awards in El-Gouna, Rome, London, Budapest and Tunisia. The Hollywood Reporter called it an ‘Intimate and moving […] meditation on truth, love and lies in the face of illness and death’.

He is currently in financing for his first fiction feature, ‘It’s a Sad and Beautiful World ’, produced by Abbout Productions (Lebanon), Reynard Films (Germany), and Diversity Hire (USA).

His last fiction short film, The President’s Visit (2017), premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), and won awards in Dubai, Nashville, the US National Board of Review and played in over 70 festivals.

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, and BBC’s short documentary Beating Hearts (2020). 

He 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.

Editing credits include American-Filippino feature film Death of Nintendo (2020) directed by Raya Martin, which premiered at the 70th Berlinale in the Generation competition, and Costa Brava Lebanon (2021) directed by Mounia Akl, which premiered at the 78th Venice Film Festival, won the NETPAC award at the Toronto International Festival, the audience award at the BFI London Film Festival, and the FIPRESCI award at El-Gouna.

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.