Tag: interview

Our dirty questions to Hamoody Jaafar

Posted on by victorfraga

Hamoody Jaafar is a first-generation Arab and Muslim-American that raised in Detroit. His directorial debut Rouge premieres this year at various festivals, including Cleveland and Freed.

Rouge documents the story of the River Rouge High School Panthers. They won a record 12 state championships between 1954 and 1972, under their legendary coach Lofton Greene. Now, former Panther player LaMonta Stone, returns to the once thriving industrial town of River Rouge, Michigan, seeking the school’s fifteenth state championship as its head coach. Rouge is as much about the personal journeys of its subjects, among them Seniors Brent Darby Jr. and Ahmoni Weston, and junior Legend Geeter, as it is about basketball and the dreams of its players who look ahead to their collegial future.

He talks to Paul Risker about this filmmaking experience, and how it ties together with his personal life and indeed with those portrayed in the movie.

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Paul Risker – You’ve said that you feel privileged to be the one to tell this story. What compelled you to believe in this film and decide to tell this story at this particular point in time?

Hamoody Jaafar – A part of this larger and incredible story is tied to my childhood. I say I feel privileged because luckily and unknowingly to me, the part I was familiar with was only a fraction of what had transpired there. Growing up in the mid to late ’90s, I looked up to Brent Darby Sr. As Rouge’s best player, it was inspiring to watch someone local go on to play Big Ten basketball on national TV. When he passed in 2011, it was tragic and it felt like the door of River Rouge basketball that I had loved and known was officially closed. Brent passed in December of 2011 and in December of 2019 I unexpectedly came across River Rouge basketball again. I felt privileged again because I had gone out to film a “shiny object” in high school basketball prospect Emoni Bates (who was River Rouge’s opponent back in December 2019 and is now in the NBA) instead I needed up in his opponents locker room unexpectedly which was River Rouge High school that night. Connecting the dots and realising that the late Brent Darby Sr had a son that was back at his father’s Alma mater playing for his late fathers coach. That serendipity was too special to ignore. Then after falling down a rabbit hole of research I discovered a history before me that was quite frankly forgotten about and somewhat undiscovered. I had no choice but to tell this story not only because what was unfolding and transpiring felt like a “movie” but more importantly because it gave way to tell a historical story that was well overdue and couldn’t have been more perfectly timed and connected with former student athlete and Coach LaMonta Stone being back. His presence gave way to a unique doorway which allowed for us to connect all of Rouges eras. 

PR – Rouge is your debut feature. How did the expectations compare to the realities of the experience?

HJ – The expectations were very high at first. The excitement of the discovery and realisation combined with the backing and belief of local collaborators who believed in the vision and story felt like we were on an upward trajectory of excitement and success. I had spent more than 10 years building a reputation and showcasing a skillset that could help further my larger storytelling endeavours. We had a production crew dialled in to bring this to life and sort of “figure it out” after capturing what we needed to. Then the Covid pandemic hit. Which completely derailed our approach and intention of documenting the 2020 state tournament in pursuit of the programme’s 15th state championship. After much introspective thought, we began documenting real life events at an attempt to give closure to our protagonists journeys. As time passed, there was certainly a point where we had no money, little belief from external interest, and 500+ hours of footage collecting dust on a few hard drives. In the summer/fall of 2022, we received a new lease on life with the project as we were awarded a grant from the Ford Foundation that gave us a real runway to finish the film in post production. The up and down nature of it certainly took its toll but I do believe that as time passed it only strengthened some of the deeper lessons of our story which is that the Rouge experience is deeper than basketball.

PR – When you first began shooting, did you have any specific intentions for the real-life story Rouge would document?

HJ – Yes to an extent.  I come from the downriver area and I’m familiar with dyer environmental and economic conditions that communities of colour face across the US in particular in southeast Michigan. When we leaned into our stakeholders stories, we knew we wanted to document some of those harsh realities. Both from an interview perspective as well as a visual one. We felt and knew those realities were important to contextualize what the realities of the real world stories now presented and were adamant about capturing them. 

PR – How tumultuous was the experience of editing the film, and did you have to leave anything on the cutting room floor you wish you could have included? Is filmmaking always about compromise and sacrifice

HJ – Undoubtedly the most challenging part of the entire process. From a time, logistical, and creative perspective. We had over 500+ hours of footage and several subplots and historical accomplishments to consider. One of our editors Chent had been working remotely with me on sheer belief since December of 2019. We ended up with 2 editors (along with Ben Garchar) who essentially tag teamed the edit after finally receiving the ford foundation grant in late 2022. We left several stories on the cutting room floor (subplots from the historical “Lofton Greene years”, a deeper dive into the history from post Lofton Greene into the stone years of the 1990s, historical accomplishments of River Rouge the place & city, dyer economic realities of the 2000s that led to the school district almost being shutdown, etc). There is certainly a level of compromise and sacrifice not only during the production process but of course in post production as well. 

PR – Do you think that Rouge will resonate with audiences outside the United States?

HJ – I believe wholeheartedly that it well. There are so many universal human themes that are very relatable. Basketball is of course an internationally loved game that can transcend racial and economic boundaries. My belief is that anywhere around the world people can relate to the themes of this story including community, fatherhood, mentorship, competition, harsh economic conditions, global pandemic, being a student or student athlete, racial integration, etc. 

PR – Rouge touches on the broad themes of race and the segregated United States, what drives us as people, memory and the relationship with the past. Can you discuss your process for attentively constructing layers of a story, identifying chapters in the story of the basketball programme, and drawing out themes and ideas that contribute to this broader conversation?

HJ – Yes. I’m a minority myself. As a first generation Arab and Muslim American I’ve had my fair share of alienation and identity struggles. Basketball to me as a young person helped me gain acceptance, friendships, discipline, etc. it even helped me shape my identity. I knew that what River Rouge had accomplished in the ’50s and ’60s was widely undiscovered and unheard of. I also knew that it was historically unique and ahead of its time. (Comparatively speaking). The former head coach, Lofton Greene and his River Rouge teams had obvious anecdotes when we had newspaper headlines that read “I don’t care what colour my players are”. During a time where the country was widely divided. This to me needed to be celebrated. And knowing that coach LaMonta Stone, who played his senior season during Coach Lofton Greene’s final year coaching at River Rouge also felt like an obvious way to connect the eras historically. Then with Coach Stone having coached the late Brent Darby Sr, and having returned to River Rouge to coach again but this time with Brent Darby Jr, it was clear to me that there was a contemporary noteworthy story unfolding in front of our eyes. The goal then was to give audiences an intimate experience into being a River Rouge Panther themselves, and following a few of the student athletes and their current journeys while simultaneously finding relevant doorways into the past to help gravitate and contextualize the stakes of the present along the way. 

PR – Watching Rouge, I found myself thinking about how the past never fades into obscurity as long as it’s alive in the memory. What Stone and his players, among them Darby Jr., Weston, and Geeter are trying to do is to keep the past alive and create new memories so that the River Rouge legacy lasts for future generations. Your thoughts on this reading of the film?

HJ – You nailed it. The past never fades as long as it’s alive in memory is right. My parents are both the youngest of seven children. They are senior citizens now. Most of my parents siblings have passed away and all I’ve held onto as I grow older are old photos and vhs tapes. My grandmother raised me and she passed 25 years ago but is still fresh in my memory. Largely due to my own insistence of having her memories fresh. I think River Rouge in present day is a different version of the pasts  historical legacy. Though River Rouge has always been a lower to middle class community, it is certainly now predominantly low income and faces some of the harshest economic conditions in the state of Michigan. I agree that Stone and his players are working to keep that history and legacy alive, no question. But this version of the programme to me is even deeper in humanity and meaning that is was before. Ahmoni Weston in particular used the program as a bridge to help him get into his next stage of life. It’s a lifesaver now more so in my opinion than maybe it used to be since it’s become a beacon of light for surrounding communities that have lost their neighbourhood schools. 

PR – Rouge is like a dance between the on-court action and off-court conversations, where you develop the personalities of your subjects. Could you discuss your approach to creating this back-and-forth rhythm?

HJ – The specificity of Ahmoni’s game is highlighting him as a floor general and leader on the court. We use his real life backstory to gravitate him being there and how much this experience means to him but also highlight his charismatic nature off the court with his teammates and parents so we can root for and feel how likable he is. With Brent Darby Jr, the backstory is obvious, the basketball stakes are high, and his existence is enough to root for. However there’s a ton of pressure when your father’s name is literally on the court. A lot of what we captured didn’t necessarily intend on showing what he internalized but his body language and facial expressions showed that. It was honest and vulnerable. The culmination of that internal emotion may have came out in frustration during the latter part of the season in that Southfield Christian game. With Legend, the basketball stakes are the highest, his physical presence on the court is captured in slow motion with aggressive rebounds and dunks over his peers but we attempted to draw a fine line between the basketball highlights and the real life moments so they meshed together in harmony and felt more specific than random. 

PR – In the on-court action, you forget you’re watching a documentary and start feeling like you’re watching a live sporting event. Was this carefully orchestrated and how do you respond to hearing about this reaction to the film?

HJ – Yes. The on-court action we wanted to capture more uniquely than maybe most basketball films. Mainly because the style of play River Rouge plays and has always played is very selfless, team-oriented, disciplined, and has great defence. Though the game of basketball has evolved and the intricacies of the game have shifted, the core fundamentals are very there and present. We wanted to capture game play in a way that felt ultra cinematic. Slow motion felt right at times because basketball can feel like the ballet when executed the right way. We also wanted to capture it intimately so the audience felt like they were a part of the team but also have a point of view that felt like a sporting event. We used multiple cameras to achieve this. We felt they deserved that type of cinematic treatment as it helped complement the many levels of the team and story overall. It also gave us several options in the edit as we developed a wider technique to capture moments unfolding from multiple angles. 

PR – How do you look back on the experience of making Rouge? Is filmmaking transformative, and where/how do you change as a person?

HJ – It was a labour of love but also a life-changing experience. I look back and think of when we started. Since then, I’ve gotten married, have a one-year-old baby girl (with another on the way), and have watched these young men grow up in front of our eyes. Filmmaking is certainly transformative. For me, it challenged me in ways I didn’t know was possible. It tested me mentally and emotionally on levels that I’m not even sure are healthy quite honestly. I told Coach Stone that if it ended up killing me to get this film completed, then so be it. That’s how passionate and adamant I was about completing it. And that quite frankly was literally the level of extent I would have gone to see it through. I’ve grown and matured in ways that are priceless. I wouldn’t have changed a single part of the experience. I believe every element of it happened for a reason.

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Hamoody is pictured on both images.

Our dirty questions to Elan Golod

Posted on by victorfraga

Elan Golod is an Israeli-American filmmaker and editor. He studied at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. He directed his debut feature Nathan-ism in 2023. This documentary of admirable beauty registers Nathan Hilu, a retired Jewish guard as he recalls his experiences of Nazi Germany through his cartoon work. Our writer Eoghan Lyng (who wrote the film review) prepared a few questions for the nascent and promising documentarist:

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Eoghan Lyng – What was it that drew you to Nathan Hilu; the man or the story?

Elan Golod – In Nathan’s case it’s difficult to separate the man from the story as they are so intertwined. I had come across an article about an exhibition of Hilu’s work, and I was immediately captivated by the complexity of his journey – A young Jewish man confronted with the perpetrators of the Holocaust, the details of which he was learning about in real time as the Nuremberg trials were unfolding. I was also intrigued by the cognitive dissonance in his artwork, which depicts heavy subject matter in a very colorful, childlike style. This unique blend felt inherently cinematic and offered a fresh way of telling a story related to the Holocaust.

EL – One of the strengths of the film is the archive of footage from 1945. How did you come across the memorabilia?

EG – I spent many hours digging through numerous online archives, searching for archival imagery that had not been used in previous Holocaust documentaries. Unfortunately the repetition of the same archival footage in many films about the Holocaust can desensitise the audience and I wanted to avoid that as much as possible.

EL – When did Hilu discover an interest in comic drawing, and do you think it was therapeutic for him?

EG – Unfortunately, it’s difficult to nail down exactly when Nathan’s artistic work began as he never dated his work. Though in interviews he often made references to the fact that he was drawing from a young age, even prior to his military service. I think even Nathan was keenly aware that his artwork had a therapeutic effect for him, helping him process the complexity of his memories. Though never formally diagnosed, I believe it’s likely Nathan grappled with PTSD from his time in Nuremberg and his creation of a visual memoir was an essential outlet for him.

EL – How long did it take to complete the film, and were there any major challenges faced along the way?

EG – The journey of making this film took approximately eight years – I got to film the last four years of Nathan’s life and then spent several years unpacking and untangling the countless stories Nathan told me to craft the narrative of the film in the edit.

While Nathan’s charismatic persona enriched the narrative, it also presented challenges in the filmmaking process. Our filming sessions were not typical interviews but resembled more of a “show-and-tell” experience, where Nathan enthusiastically unveiled the stories behind his latest drawings allowing minimal space for probing questions. However, by selectively highlighting certain drawings for discussion, I managed to guide the dialogue towards the specific themes I aimed to explore.

EL – The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer, 2023) shows a different perspective to the Holocaust. Is it important to show every facet from the time?

EG – I think it’s commendable when filmmakers or artists in other mediums are able to expand the conversation about the Holocaust, shedding light on untold narratives and offering fresh perspectives. In exploring lesser-known stories and viewpoints, these creators challenge prevailing narratives and broaden our collective consciousness. Their work serves as a potent reminder that the Holocaust was not a monolithic event but a complex tapestry of individual experiences, each deserving of recognition and remembrance. Works like The Zone of Interest compel audiences to confront uncomfortable truths and grapple with the complexities of human nature, thereby fostering empathy, understanding, and a commitment to preventing such atrocities from recurring.

EL – It surprised me that Hilu called Albert Speer a “friendly guy.” Were you taken aback by that revelation?

EG – This was quite the surprise to me as well, but the more I got to know Nathan the more it seemed to make sense. Confronted with such evil among the defendants he was guarding, I think Nathan was trying to grasp onto some semblance of humanity among this group of prisoners and Albert Speer emerged as the closest embodiment of that. Several other former guards at the Nuremberg trials commented on how personable Albert Speer was compared to the rest of the Nazi defendants they guarded in the prison.

EL – Hilu intimates that art prevented him from getting dementia – do you think that’s a fair comment?

EG – To some degree, that’s very possible. Art therapy is often seen as a promising intervention that could potentially mitigate the progression of cognitive decline. However, it’s important to acknowledge the complex nature of memory. While Nathan may have believed that his artwork was effectively preserving his memories, the reality might be more nuanced. Memories can be elusive and subject to distortion over time, challenging the notion that any intervention can fully preserve them intact.

EL – You screened the film in Israel: what was the reaction to it?

EG – The film was extremely well received in Israel and Nathan’s story was particularly resonant for a primarily Jewish audience in Israel. Having grown up in Israel, our screenings in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem were particularly poignant for me. My team and I were extremely honored to receive an award from Yad Vashem (The World Holocaust Remembrance Center) for “cinematic excellence in Holocaust documentary filmmaking”. The film will have its broadcast release in Israel on the Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah) on May 5th of this year.

EL – Talk to us about the animation process: was that difficult to realise for the big screen?

EG – From the outset I felt strongly that Nathan’s vibrant artwork could be brought to life through animation. However, the main challenge was finding the right animator who could emulate Hilu’s style authentically. A few years into the filmmaking process, I came across the work of Héloïse Dorsan Rachet, a Paris-based animator who had done beautiful animation sequences for Michelle Steinberg’s documentary “A Place to Breathe.” Her work left me with the impression that she could replicate Nathan’s hand-drawn style. I supplied Héloïse with numerous references from Nathan’s artwork and we set out on a series of tests to figure out how to bring Nathan’s work to life while staying as true to the original work. The specific references we chose and the animation treatment we landed on ended up being crucial in immersing viewers in Nathan’s deeply subjective perspective.

EL – Do you think it’s important to note down these memories of WW2 on screen, and what do you think audiences will learn from this film?

EG – I think that especially at this pivotal moment when the last living witnesses from the WWII era are passing away, it is essential to discuss the challenges in stewarding history for the next generation. I recently had the honour of bringing the film and Nathan’s story full circle by screening the film inside Courtroom 600 in Nuremberg, where the Nazi criminals were brought to justice. This momentous occasion served as a poignant reminder of the weighty responsibility we bear in safeguarding our collective memory. I hope viewers take this film as an opportunity to examine the ways in which we can keep our stories alive, and the intrinsic value of taking the time to listen to our elders.

EL – The film makes very little reference to the conflict with Palestine. Please comment.

EG – The film was made and released long before the current situation unfolded, therefore it does not reference the conflict. During my time with Nathan, he never really brought up Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a subject of discussion or drawing, so my team and I did not feel the impulse to insert it into the film’s narrative.

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Elan Golod is pictured at the top of this interview. The other image is a production still of Nathan-ism.

Our dirty questions to Layla Kaylif

Posted on by victorfraga

Layla Kaylif is the woman behind The Letter Writer, a film which she wrote, direct, and in which she also plays a small role. DMovies‘ editor Victor Fraga sat down with Layla at the BFI Southbank a few days before her movie about interracial, intercontinental and platonic love is launched on both sides of the Atlantic.

They talked about how the project originated, casting and filming in the UAE, recreating the Arab country in the 1960s (a few years before its independence), finding the perfect English rose, her passion for Latin America, women filmmakers in the Middle East, and much more!

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Victor Fraga – When and where did this international, multicultural film journey begin, and how long it took from conception to completion?

Layla Kaylif – So basically, growing up, my father would tell us stories about his childhood, and, he was a letter writer, that was his summer job. A lot of things in the film that are based on my parents and the rest of my family. I was a bit of obsessed with my grandmother, she was of this little Buddha kind of character, and I was always quite intimidated by her. I’m a sort of person that likes to tell stories. So I the idea of this particular story started percolating in my head 20 years ago. At some point, I just decided to write the script, and the first draft was ready in 2013. I won the IWC Filmmaker Award at the Dubai International Film Festival. I had given my father the script, but he wouldn’t read it. My dad is a very gruff character. Not gruff, but honest. And he was like: “yeah, whatever!”. And then when won the IWC Filmmaker Award, he was like: “maybe I should read this script after all, you know?”. And he really loved it. Plus, he said there were a lot of accuracies!

So in 2015 I got some money for development. Then I went to Dubai, and we went into production. Fun! The main issue was finding a producer. The Dubai independent film sector is extremely tough. It’s not like England where like you can hire a DoP who works on big scene,, who works on a commercial gig one day, and then gives you a good rate. And line producers are almost non-existent. Okay. It’s a very commercial based industry. It was an extraordinary struggle not just in terms of crew. So I found, I finally found Chris Buschek, and he was wonderful. God bless him. He died a year ago, bless him. He was a wonderful man. And he got behind me. He brought that energy and he got the crew. I met my DoP Arturo [Vasquez] in England, where he was living. The whole thing was very incremental.

VF – Could you please tell us about casting? How did you approach Rosie McEwen, and the are the rest of the cast Emirati?

LK – I put out a request. Eslam [Al Kawarit] sent me a little video of himself, and I was like: “This is my Khalifa”. This was like a year before we made the film. But, Mr. Mohammed [Muhammad Amir Nawaz] was a waiter and in a in a coffee shop I used to frequent in Dubai. I used to go in there for about five years. I told him: “You’re gonna be in my movie one day”, and he thought I was crazy!

I was looking for an English Rose to play Elli. I just Googled actors. And then I saw a headshot of Rosy [McEwen]…

VF – You fell in love with a photograph, just like the character in your film?

LK – I did! I was like, that’s her. That’s my Ellie. So I called her agent and said that she’s beautiful.

VF – She’s quintessentially English.

LK – And she’s so so lovely. And then we zoomed and and that was it. She wasn’t very well known then. I think since then she’s done stuff. She’s really up and coming now!

VF – What about the rest of the cast?

LK – We have a pool of talent in Dubai, but they they predominantly work on commercials. Or maybe if there’s a film shooting in Dubai. Some of the smaller roles were given to professional actors. Like Kaltham, she’s the star in that movie you reviewed, Dalma [Humaid Alsuwaidi, 2023]. She’s just under a different name [M. Hira]. Everyone was local, except for Rosy.

VF – Was the Brazilian film Central Station (Walter Salles, 1998), also about a letter writer, an influence?

LF – Well the funny thing is I had written the script before I saw it and then I watched it and I was like “oh my God, I love this film”. And and to be honest with you, I wish I could have replicated some of it.. I love it in the Central Station [train station], the footage of the way when she’s writing, when she’s talking to the customers. It’s very dynamic. I wanted the camera to roll. I wanted to capture more kind of the impromptu action. I wanted more handheld, but everything was very static. Arturo and I wanted to shoot some scenes where Khalifa was wandering through the town. We were very limited in terms of our locations. We were lucky that we found that one location, in order to recreate Old Dubai.

VF – What filmmakers influenced you?

LK – I love Latin American cinema. Like Water for Chocolate [Alfonso Arau, 1992] is one of my favourite films. I just love the aesthetics. Platinum. I’m by the way, I’m a Latin America-phile, that’s why I like you [laughs]. European Spain is very different culturally. I was very good friends at one point with Paulo Coelho. That’s the only other Brazilian like, oh yeah. And you know, There’s just something Arab about you guys.

VF – Well, he did write a book called The Alchemist [about a boy’s journey through the Arab world]… Let’s now talk about your locations,. Your film shows a Dubai foreign to modern-day eyes. Where did you film it, and how did UAE audiences react?

LK – We found a location that was still under development. It was called Al Seef Heritage Area. It’s a location that was still not open to the public. Ultimately, Dubai is very oriented for tourism and business. We were very lucky to find area.

VF – You are mixed race, yourself the byproduct of Arab-British romance. Did your parents encounter many objections to their relationship?

LK – There was like a sort of a generation of young Arab men in the 60s who went to England and then married their English roses. It was like something in the water. My dad sort of looked a bit like Omar Sharif. Omar Sharif was such an archetype! My Arab family loved my British mum, and welcomed her. I grew up with kids from mixed marriages. Culturally, they were outliers. The families were very accepting of the foreign bride. There was no issue.

VF – Is that because the foreign was a female?

LK – Yes! Muslim men can marry Christian and Jewish women, but not the other way around. Unless the man converts to Islam. The Quran says there is no compulsion in religion, so it would have to be his choice.

VF – Your movie is an Emirati production, but with a string British element. Did you attempt to get British funding?

LK – We did post-production in Britain. And it would have passed the cultural test. In the end, I did not bother. But I got financing from the UAE.

VF – What barriers did you encounter as a female filmmaker in the UAE, and is that changing?

LK – I wasn’t part of the filmmaking environment, the clique. Nayla [Al-Khaja] struggled to get her film made [Three, which showed at Red Sea International Film Festival in 2023]. We went to the same school. She is younger than me, but we both went to Latifa School for Girls [in Dubai]. I watched the first documentary she made, years and years ago. It’s a small community. Image Nation is the funding body, and they have an Emirati filmmaking department. And there’s like three people who they fund, and that;’s three guys. That’s their go-to’s. It’s very institutionalised. They make films that reflect their ethos.

VF – That doesn’t sound like an environment that’s easy to break into!

LK – I met with these people. I went to Image Nation, in my first round of getting the film made. And I just realised we weren’t on the same page. They were going to appropriate it and make it into something they wanted to make. To me, film is a vocation. I’m not doing film because I want to become a UAE mascot. I don ‘t really fit the mould. the reality is that I made my film independently. I’m proud. It’s probably the first fully independent film made in the UAE. I think Nayla did hers independently, too.

I don’t get prejudice for being a professional woman. I’m not a stripper, you know [laughs]? Dubai is very pro-female in the workplace. It’s about policies of the industry, and the people involved.

VF – It seems to me that you opted to leave religion out of your film, or at least the direct debate on religious tolerance. On the other hand, you address racism and xenophobia. Why is that?

LK – Actually, I did put a little bit of religion in the film. You missed it! It’s my feminine aspect. Islam is a very yang faith. Sufism is the mystical element of Islam. The yin of Islam. The idea of the yin and the yang. This is an area that hasn’t been developed sufficiently. You know when he [Khalifa] is writing the letter to Miss Elli saying “All the creatures are crying because the most beauty in all of Allah’s world is far away”, and the lady is praying behind him. Do you remember this scene? That was my nod to Islam, the feminine side of Islam.

VF – You are also a singer. Could you please tell us how you intend to reconcile this with your filmmaking career? Are female singers frowned upon in the UAE, and more so than women filmmakers?

LK – The Emirati community are even more conservative than the Saudi and the Kuwaiti communities. I happen to come from a very conservative family. But I’m not subject to the same rules because my mom is English. Having said that, being a singer caused tremendous problems. That was 20 years ago. When I released my song, my family were outraged. There is a very specific Emirati aesthetic and culture, and I don’t look like that. My father comes from the establishment, so i have to tread very carefully.

I come from a conservative culture and I have my boundaries. In Iranian cinema, there are a lot of boundaries. Shakespeare lived in a police state. I mean Elizabethan England was a police state. People in this part of the world no longer understand what it’s like to live in a society that’s controlled, that’s authoritarian. They don’t understand the realities of that environment, they don’t realise Shakespeare had to write under very strict parameters.

The good thing about the Arab world, when you get over a certain age nobody cares what you do anymore. Women above a certain age are put out to pasture.

VF – Beyond the expiry date?

LK – I am expired. Well, whatever! [laughs] The other thing is when you are married…

VF – I’m glad you talked about marriage because I wanted to address that topic. In your film, marriage is the only way of consummating love. Even Khalifa dreams of marrying Elli, Elli wants to marry a man in Britain, and so on. Does the possibility of being a a loving relation outside the institution of marriage exist?

LK – It’s a conservative culture. Women aren’t even allowed to date. It’s a “don’t ask, don’t tell” culture. Even within the traditional culture, women won’t marry outside the extended family.

VF – Is that not changing?

LK – Not that I can see. This is how I compare it: imagine that your family were Amish people. So when I visit my relatives, I’m in Amish land. I love my family and they love me, but they understand we live in different universes.What most people don’t actually realise is that within the UAE, amongst the indigenous population, women are empowered, educated, they are encouraged to work. These girls don’t feel like they’re oppressed, I would guess. I know my cousins and my second cousins would marry according to the expectations. At some point, I was an insider, when I was growing up [they would say]: “of course you’re gonna marry your cousin”.

VF – Is arranged marriage still a thing?

LK – Yes, sort of. I can’t speak for every family. I can only speak for my family.

VF – Neighbouring Saudi Arabia has seen major advance for women, film and also specifically for women filmmakers. Why do you think that is, and are these changes here to stay?

LK – Saudi women of a certain class were always very liberated outside Saudi Arabia. I remember when I was a kid, Saudi women would come here to the UK and they wouldn’t veil anymore. While Emirati women would keep their veil on. A lot of these Saudi women who are now filmmakers, they were already outsiders, and abroad they would look Westernised. You are not seeing the emergence of a different type of person, you’re just seeing the ability to do it inside the country.

VF – What is your message for aspiring women filmmakers in the UAE or anywhere else in the Arab world?

LK – You must develop the [film] industry internally! It’s a structural thing. It’s not a feminist issue. The question of conservatism is about sexual conservatism, in terms of chastity, not so much professional conservatism.

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The image as the top of this article was snapped by Sonya Jasinski. The remaining images are production stills by Alejando Iodice.

Our dirty questions to Matthew Bauer

Posted on by victorfraga

Australian-born director Matthew Bauer’s The Other Fellow (2023) is a lively documentary that looks at real men who go about their day to day lives under the name James Bond. From the reluctant participants, to the people who adopted the name, Bauer interviews them all, and offers viewers a portal into a strange reality on this planet we live on. The film went on to win Documentary of The Year at the Bond Community Awards, offering a novel insight into the world of James Bond.IEoghan Lyng described the documentary as “the most engaging Bond film since Skyfall [Sam Mendes, 2012]”, which amused the director. In this interview, Bauer explains his process as both a filmmaker and a creative thinker, and offers an insight into the James Bond series as an entity. Agreeing to a phone interview, Bauer went on length to talk about the many Bonds he met. One of them, incidentally, was a man from Ireland. The Other Fellow will stream from January 4th on ITVX.

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Eoghan Lyng – Watching the documentary, I was amazed that nobody had directed one like this before. Was this the impetus for the documentary?

Matthew Bauer – I would describe it as “surely someone has done this”, and when someone hadn’t, I thought it was worth pursuing. A lot of the people in the documentary, as you know, have been asked to do commercials, and asked to do lots of other things. So, we started off exploring that. No one had said it was a feature film – but the stories we found got us there.

EL – What was the general consensus you gleaned from the people you interviewed?

MB – A lot of them would say the same thing : “It’s a blessing and a curse.” Which was nice to know that there are good things that come with being named James Bond. More of them say the world thinks it’s a blessing,when it’s really a curse. Of course, with the Swedish James Bond, it was all about the positives.

EL – How long did it take to execute the film, from beginning to end?

MB – Nine years in total – from beginning to end. So, it was my first film out of film school. I was told that it takes seven years on average for documentaries. Probably a little smaller in the age of digital. But at the beginning I remember thinking, “God, these people don’t know what they’re doing” [chuckles]. But it did take a lot of time to research, and we would often have to wait a year for someone to film. I mean, we could have released a really bad documentary five years ago. But it was my first film, and I wanted to get it right. I didn’t want to rush my first feature – you only ever get one chance! I saw some people rush their first film, straight out of school. Documentaries take time, especially on a smaller budget.

EL – Ian Fleming was a clever writer, and one I think was undervalued by his critics. You used footage of him – what is your opinion of the writer?

MB – I like the way he comes across in the film. Fleming was quite playful in his own way- he’d steal names for his books all the time. And it wasn’t just James Bond, which of course he got from the book [Birds of The West Indies]. He got the name Goldfinger from the architect Ernő Goldfinger. Well, Fleming hated Goldfinger’s buildings, and controversially, named the villain after him. So, it was quite a playful way of doing that. I’m a Fleming fan. Some people, such as the Swedish James Bond, modelled themselves on the Fleming lifestyle, but that can lead one to an early grave with the smoking and the drinking. That was the case for Fleming. But a lot of 20th, 21st century men have modelled their lives on him. I like the quote that was referenced in No Time To Die – “’I shan’t waste my life by trying to prolong it.”

EL – No Time To Die (Cary Joji Fukunaga, 2021) divides Bond fans. I personally think the Daniel Craig era started well, and stumbled with the last two films. Tell me what your view is.

MB – As you said in your review, my film is the best Bond since Skyfall, so that’s that [laughs uproariously]. But the ending of No Time To Die … A lot of people didn’t like it, but I thought it was fantastic killing Bond. I thought it was an amazing thing to witness in the cinema. There were other stuff in that film that didn’t make any sense. If there was that blood virus they created, why were there people in the water? Why was there the garden in that building? I didn’t understand why. If you’d told me years ago that “Spectre [Sam Mendes, 2015] was behind everything” and “they were going to kill Bond ”, I would have said it was the best Bond fan fiction around. But in killing Bond, I think I would have preferred it in a John Le Carré kind of way – a spy thriller way. Instead, we got the killer virus from a deus machina kind of way.

EL – Did you interview any Bond connoisseurs?

MB – No, most of my characters avoid people like the plague [giggles]. They’re not familiar with The Man With The Golden Gun. They’re not haunted by the films per se, but by the incessant coverage of Bond. James Bond is that ubiquitous. The best summary I can think of is from the New York James Bond who said “sequel was a new form in the 1960s “. These days, we are so accustomed to franchise and follow up films. The death of James Bond has been speculated for years. People said when Sean Connery left, “That’s the death of Bond.” After Licence To Kill [John Glen, 1989], it was “The death of Bond.” After Die Another Day [Lee Tamahori, 2002], it was “The death of Bond.” This thing can’t go on forever, they felt.

EL – Sherlock Holmes has shown that these things can go on forever. It went from book, to theatre, to radio, to cinema..

MB – Yes, that’s the other one. Maybe Sherlock, Bond and Tarzan. But it is something that these Bond families have to think about. The London James Bond compared them to the Bourne families. Well, they think, “There’s what? Four Jason Bourne films.” Bond has much more, but for Bond families. And the first someone tells them when they have a son is, “You’re going to call him James”.

EL – It’s what I would do.

MB – Yeah! But it’s most common in American families – it’s the first thing that comes to mind. And a lot of them go with it.

EL – How many men are named James Bond? One hundred?

MB – I don’t know how many there are. We contacted about one hundred, and a lot of media outlets have said it’s something like that, but I honestly don’t know. I would guess tens of thousands!

EL – Fleming himself was contacted by the man whose name he took. What do you know about that?

MB – I think everyone knows about the ornithologist – very much in the lore. I think these days every James Bond fan knows that. What happened to that Bond? Turned out quite a lot happened. The BBC interviewed him to ask what had happened in about 1965, so he was interviewed, along with his wife. We got to see BBC World Service Interviews and bring it to life in our documentary.

EL – Did President Kennedy help popularise the James Bond series in America?

MB – Yes, he made it a more known quantity when he put it in his 1963 list of favourite books. We actually considered putting in a sequence set in The White House. We considered a re-enactment, but ultimately decided against it. As it happens, there are a lot of American Bond fans.It’s not the craze as it is in the UK, but there are a lot of fans.

EL – I wonder why that is?

MB – Americans are obsessed with Princess Diana and that kind of thing. They enjoy British culture. But there is a difference between them and British readers. They read Bond and don’t get that it’s all meant to be a big joke, like it’s seen in the UK.

EL – On that note, I probably shouldn’t mention that my favourite Bond is Timothy Dalton, who brought reality to it. He’s the only one who could play Le Carré as well as Fleming.

MB – Dalton was wonderful. Licence to Kill isn’t just one of the most underrated Bond films, but one of the most underrated films of all time.

EL – Agreed.

MB – Dalton actually met a real James Bond. As you know in The Living Daylights, they filmed the opening scene at the Rock of Gibraltar. As it happened, an officer named James Bond was stationed there. So, they wheeled him out for a photo with Timothy Dalton. He might be the only actor to meet a real James Bond.

EL – That’s remarkable.

MB – Yeah, I sent him all these letters. They went unanswered, so I drove down to meet him. His wife basically chased me away. But in a way, I can understand that. It was in the media – outlets like The Daily Mail. He was a private man, and probably didn’t want to do the photo, but his army buddies made him do it.

EL – Although he isn’t the most popular Bond among fans, Pierce Brosnan nevertheless is something of a national icon in my native Ireland. As an Australian, do you think the same applies to George Lazenby?

DM – I think there has been a change of opinion towards Brosnan. The last two Craig films led to a comeback, I feel. It’s interesting, because you can easily see him in The Living Daylights, a film that was originally written for Brosnan. With Lazenby, I think he’s something of a trivia question in Australia. It’s, ‘Oh yeah, an Australian played Bond.’ To his credit, he comes across as a real ‘Australian Australian’, and seems to be one of the genuine ‘Australian Austrlians’ out there. I think I like the film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service [Peter R. Hunt, 1969] more than him. Twenty years ago, On Her Majesty’s was something of a lost curiosity, but over the years it’s been elevated to the top. Deservedly so too, because it just might be the best film in the series. Lazenby has a curious reputation, and he has made openly homophobic, racist and misogynistic comments in interviews. You could say that is the stereotypical trait of a ‘traditional Aussie bloke’ but it makes for a curious opinion worldwide.

EL – You’ve mentioned an American James Bond and a London James Bond. You didn’t discover an Irish one, did you?

MB – I did meet an Irish James bond actually. Are you familiar with a programme called ‘Newstalk with Moncrieff’? I did an interview with Sean Moncrieff. Well, anyway, I did meet one in Ireland, but we couldn’t use him in the end because it was a standard story. But he’s on Facebook, and he’s an Irish rugby player.

EL – Talk to me about the Swedish Bond – that’s not his birth name, is it?

MB – No, that was an interesting story. The Swedish Bond was the son of a German officer. Like a lot of German officers after the war, his father returned to Germany for a bit, and never returned. So, this man discovered the Fleming books, which are Post War stories. In that sense, the Swedish man saw similarities with his father, although he was on a different side. So, he saw Fleming as a sort of surrogate father, and modelled himself on Bond. Eventually, he changed his name to James Bond. At first, this was something I wanted to avoid, but because so much of the documentary was about the negativity of carrying the name, we needed the balance and have someone who positively chose the name. We needed that counterbalance for the documentary.

EL – Have you had feedback from EON, or other Bond affiliates?

MB – From EON productions? Absolutely nothing…..But I did have a screening that featured Daniel Craig’s brother in the audience.

EL – Now, that’s a story.

MB – Obviously, Daniel Craig’s brother has a different version. He came to a screening in Oswestry.We’d had the UK premiere where Naomi from The Spy Who Loved Me [Lewis Gilbert, 1977] and the actress who played Fiona Volpe (Luciana Paluzzi) attended. Anyway, a James Bond from Oswestry came to me to arrange a screening in his town. He was a sports reporter, and was the head of the Oswestry film society. He said we could have a screening in Oswestry, where Craig’s brother lived. So who knows? Maybe the brother mentioned it to Daniel and Rachel Weisz over Christmas!

EL – What has the response been from Bond fans?

MB – Mark O’ Connell was involved with the film. I think he’s credited as “Consulting Producer”. Although I am a big Bond fan, I’m not connected to the sphere as he is. He did a lot of PR stuff – he knows all the fans! Do you know of this YouTuber called David Zaritsky? Mark alerted him, and alerted Calvin Dyson to go along to the premiere. You may know that the Bond Community Awards is happening tonight, and is happening in a bar in New Jersey. And we have been nominated for Best Documentary. So, that’s very flattering that the Bond fans nominated us.

EL – It’s certainly a unique documentary.

MB: Thank you. I kind of wanted to do something that was different. I loved those Patrick McNee documentaries when I was a kid, but I think these days every fan knows that Dr.No director Terence Young was a “real life Bond.” This wasn’t a documentary about the making of, say, Moonraker [Lewis Gilbert, 1979]. But we did feature moments such as the Swedish Bond who appeared on the set of Spectre. We had that scene of him following Daniel Craig who was filming a scene for his Bond.

EL – Finally, how would you market this film to people who are between two minds about this film?

MB – I follow the Seinfeld mantra a bit of “no hugging no learning”… but more seriously, I think it’s a reflection of the internet age. In today’s society, there’s a lot of talk on how we make judgements on appearance, race and gender. Well, this is about how judgements are made based on names. You know the way you type your name into gmail and you can’t have it..

EL – Luckily, I’m the only Eoghan Lyng I know of. I don’t think I have that problem.

MB – Ha ha! But you know how it is. I typed my name into Instagram, and found another account with the same name. It was a profile someone set up in 2009, and used once. That’s often the way. And when you have an extreme name like James Bond, it can make life harder on the internet. Obviously, this documentary is not as important as children starving in Africa, but it does make comments on how we live in the world, and how we make perceptions about other people.

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Matthew Bauer is pictured at the top of this interview (snapped by Jamie Touche); the other two images are stills from The Other Fellow

Our dirty questions to Baz Luhrmann

Posted on by victorfraga

Aussie maestro Baz Luhrmann was omnipresent during the third edition of the Red Sea Film International Festival (RSIFF). He took his job as president of the jury very seriously and could be spotted in every screening of the films in competition, held at the impressive Vox cinemas, in Jeddah.

Baz also found time to moderate a talk with fellow Aussie actor and friend Chris Hemsworth, known mainly for his role as a Scandinavian God called Thor, in the Marvel franchise . But that’s another story. Luhrmann’s artistic streak is easily recognisable. He has reinvented the musical genre with glitzy gems like Strictly Ballroom (1992), Moulin Rouge (2001) and his more recently Elvis (2022).

He was also very moved by the films he saw at the RSIFF, especially the ones that focused on women’s rights and personal dramas. He is even considering making his next project in Saudi Arabia. I sat down with Baz, and a small group of international journalists, at the Ritz-Carlton, the heart of the Festival. We discussed why film musicals should resist, his passion for Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962), and his surprise with the current state of Arabian movies.

You can find out about the movies that Baz and his jury picked by clicking here.

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Duda Leite – In 2021, you said that you wanted to bring Hollywood to Australia. How is that going?

Baz Luhrman – I don’t doubt that was my sentiment. I would never use Hollywood to Australia, maybe I was being flippant. But what I am not flippant about is that, we are a small country and I am devoted to it. And in a million years, if I would have said that I would end up in the Gulf Coast, I would probably say not. I had to make Elvis in Australia, and it was great. My kids were full of love for the environment. And the state money was behind it. The federal government was behind it. And Chris Hemsworth, who has just arrived this morning, lives just down the road. So if the question is: “am I still devoted to it?” Yes. We live around the world. We have a house there. That would be our prior base. Somewhere between there and Paris. (laughs)

DL – During the opening of the Red Sea Film Festivalk you’ve mentioned that you would be available to make a film here.

BL – I was not being fastidious about that. This is also a small country. We make a lot of big movies in Australia. But we make a lot of small films in Australia, like when I did “Strictly Ballroom”. We have a lot of weird, strange small independent movies being made there. But here, when I came out to do my own investigation six months ago, I went to the Film Alula Studios being made here, and this was 6 months ago. They might be finished now. But they were really serious good soundstages. They are looking at the right things at rebates, because they’ve got to compete. It’s a real thing. You can go to Canada and get a rebate. You don’t have to invest a lot of money, you just don’t pay taxes. Just like any other industry, if you bring 100 million dollars in, it’s good for the environment. So, to answer your question: absolutely. I’ve always been interested in the region, ever since as a kid. One of the first films I saw as a kid was Lawrence of Arabia. And since then, I have always been magnetically drawn to this part of the world. My journey started six months ago, it was such an eye opener. Because, when you are outside, your information comes only through clickbait and snapshots. Some of it may be true, but what was so revelatory is when you come here and realize that 75% of the population is under 35 years old. So I met a lot of young female filmmakers. And some of whom had just pitched their films, some of the issues in their movie were irrelevant when they finished the movie. So quick is the change. So you get the energy of these young filmmakers. They want their future. And they’re gonna have it.

DL – It’s true that they are building these studios, but they are not allowed to have unions here. How would you deal with that?

BL – It’s a good question. I’ve made Romeo + Juliet (1996), and it’s my only film that I made outside of Australia. I made that one in Mexico. I would have to jump into the details of this. But if I am going to make a show here – we call them shows – I know I’ll be able to bring that to the table certain requests. What we did in Mexico is that we brought some of the key people to the project, but part of the deal was to work with some local emerging talents. Obviously the crew, and one of the young guys there, ended up having a pretty good career. He won a couple of Oscars. It was Alfonso Cuarón. He used to sit and hang out on the set of Romeo + Juliet. And we were laughing about that. So the word I like to use is cross-fertilisation. Our film wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t the cross-fertilisation between our creatives and our communities. Whenever we are. As far as the union question, that requires further examination, because I really don’t know how that works here. Let’s just wait and see how it goes. They had 35 years without being able to go see a movie. There were no movie theatres here five years ago. Now, I’ve seen movies… When people talk to me about Saudi, and how they see it from outside, I always tell them: go see the movies that I saw. In the last few days, with diverse audiences, from diverse backgrounds. Go see the movies. See how they’re made, see the subject matters. And then come back to me, and I’ll talk to you. The stories answer the questions.

DL – Are you confident that cinema and culture can change things, rather than politics?

BL – Before I came, I really did my investigation. I wasn’t manicured. Sure, people were taking me to places. There was always some trepidation, from being here, I am doubling down 100%. I am 100% sure of how important this festival is. Because in a world where we are being fed by politics, we are absolutely being fed by violent solutions. Storytelling voices humanize them. And what I’ve seen on the screen, is the humanising of things that we are saying intellectually, or politically. But when you see the stories, you see the people. No person’s pain is less than another’s. And I am confident, no wrong world. I am absolutely sure that we have to double down on stories being streaming or film. Let’s say films, because film as an art takes some time to dictate. Particularly the young voices. I’ve seen some stuff, with some similar themes, no matter the genre, and I am like: “hang on, this is a pattern here”. I didn’t know that. And some of the topics are very clear that this is a problem. When you see these human beings, if I say: “a woman”, some of them have these amazing female performances. Amazing. And how these good people, for no fault of their own, lack the ability to solve the simple things. And at the same time, they’re really entertaining. It’s some really good filmmaking. That’s exciting.

DL – Every now and then, people like to say that musicals are dead. And you’ve proved them wrong once again with Elvis. Why do you think musicals are so resilient?

BL – Actually they’re resilient because if you look at them, every period found his style of movies. Even in the 1970s, a period where the New Hollywood was happening, if you look at “Saturday Night Fever” (1977), it’s a shocking movie. There are things in that movie that you would not be able to have in a film today. Shocking! There is language that you would not be able to use today. There is a rape scene that you could not have in a movie today. You would think it’s a movie about disco dancing, actually it’s about this group of macho males, and the toughness of the environment they’re in. And aspiring to get over that and the dancing is part of it. Musicals in the ’70s tended to have some realism about them. Like in “Cabaret” (1972), where all the musical numbers had to be on stage. Every period finds its language. And the thing about musicals is that people think they’re easy to make, and they are incredibly difficult to make. But if they work, they never go away. I did “Moulin Rouge” 20 years ago, and now it has 6 productions around the world in the theater.

DL – This year there were quite a few refreshing Australian movies, like Limbo (Ivan Sen, 2023), and The New Boy (Warwick Thornton, 2023). And a couple of these films deal with the native people of the Western coast. Do you think that the films being made in Australia are changing and facing this part of history?

BL – I just met a new world of faraway downs. It was when I made the movie Australia (2008) many years ago. And I shot 2.5 million of shooting, but I wasn’t unable to finish it the way I wanted, because I was doing in a more epic way the story of an indigenous child. And it was a story warped up in a melodrama fashion. The core of the story were these native children that were forced to be put in mixed races families. That was the center of the story. What was so remarkable, and it was the center of the story, one of the filmmakers that was working in that movie, was Warwick Thorton, who made The New Boy. And a lot of outsiders don’t understand that the issue of this native generation is such a profound guide in the history of our country. And a history not told. And that’s what I thought when I did Australia, and I wanted to do it in a deeper way. [Baz just released a re-edited version of the movie with some extra footage as a TV series].

What is so great is that at that time, there were some indigenous filmmakers, but now, there is a whole new scene. I was recently listening to the soundtracks of all these young indigenous pop stars doing their music. I think it might be a good comparison with the way things are happening here in Saudi. The fact that only a few years ago one of the first heroes of the Saudi cinema was a woman (Haifaa Al-Mansour, director of 2012’s Wadjda), and she had to direct her first movie from inside a car. And the film became a hit. And she’s become an icon. And there is a new generation of women directors, some of them I’ve met. And it’s interesting as female directors are leading the charge in this new scenario. And that’s part of I am calling a Repo effect. I think you can never do enough. But what I think it’s great is a lot of those indigenous first nations directors in Australia, who are friends and whom I know well, they’re just great filmmakers. They are not being locked in.

DL – Haifaa Al Mansour moved to New Zealand. So I guess there are limited opportunities here. And especially for women who are not afraid to speak up.

BL – Very good point. Because, you know, it’s such a schizophrenic thing, I am not sure that is the right word. From one hand, there are all these young female filmmakers, who are a driving force, but who are constrained. Having said that, your point of her moving to New Zealand is a very good one. Because for us, back in the day as Australians, right? We would make a really good movie, like Peter Weir, or Gillian Armstrong, a great example. And then, they would go off to Hollywood. There just wasn’t the scale or the infrastructure for the industry growth to stay in Australia and make a big film. And as we grew, we can now have people like Chris Hemsworth, who can make some of the biggest productions, and live just down the road. It’s gonna take time. I am not sugarcanning the issues. I never had to sit in a Jury and see four films a day, it takes work, but it’s so nourishing. To be blunt, a lot of the films I’ve seen, the issue of women’s rights, and just the ability to do the simple things, things that we would take for granted, it’s dealt with in those films. And what is great is a female story. I can only say I have absolutely no doubt that supporting the Red Sea Film festival and the diversity of their audiences from this environment of the whole area, it’s got to be a good thing, Because certainly politics are not going to be much help.

DL – You mentioned that you have this desire of making a film here, what would it be about?

BL – I didn’t say I have an idea. I’ve come and seen the environment… Could I see myself making a film here? Absolutely I could. But that is a very different issue to what I was saying, that is the ability of anyone – out of the agenda – to tell their story. That’s all it’s been said. I’m not saying it’s done. Neither is the empowerment of the First Nations in Australia. There are huge and massive leaps. There is a lot more to do. More to do. But you’ve got to start somewhere. Instead of not doing nothing.

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Baz Luhrmann is pictured at the top of this interview, image by Daniele Venturelli. He is pictured alongside Duda Leite below, image by Duda Leite.

Our dirty questions to Tamer Ruggli

Posted on by victorfraga

Egyptian-Swiss filmmaker Tamer Ruggli’s debut feature Back to Alexandria is an elegant mother-daughter melodrama that impressed me greatly with its sumptuous visuals. It’s a simple, understated story of a woman, Sussi (Nadine Labaki), returning to her native Egypt to visit her dying mother that has little in the way of explosive dramatics, but much in terms of rich textures and subtle nuances of character. Sussi’s mother is played by French diva Fanny Ardant who gives an extravagant, overly-glamorous performance, providing a rich counterpoint to the withdrawn, stoic work of Labaki.

The film premiered at the Zurich Film Festival back in October and had its Mena premiere at the 3rd Red Sea Film Festival in Jeddah. I sat down with Ruggli to talk about the film amidst the splendorous gardens of the Ritz-Carlton in Jeddah which had been taken over by the Red Sea Film Festival as a press office.

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Joshua Bogatin – Can you start by telling me how you started the project and what first interested you about the story?

Tamer Ruggli – I’ve always felt drawn to my Egyptian side of the family, which was the more eccentric or exuberant side compared to the Swiss side, so I wanted to pay homage to them with this film. It also came from many childhood stories my mother would tell me about the conflicted relationship she had with her mother growing up in one of those decadent apartments from the ancient Egyptian aristocracy. So it was inspired by my mother’s journey, but also by my own childhood memories. As a child, people tend to forget that you’re there so they talk in your presence about secrets, family history, and stuff you really shouldn’t pick up. Fortunately, I picked up a lot of those things and they became part of this film. Lastly it also came out of feeling I had growing up in Europe, but confronted with the Arab and shocked by things like the different relationships they have with their domestic help or the class gaps in society for example.

JB – Did the extravagant nature of Fanny Ardant’s character also come from personal memories of your family?

TR – Yes and it was important for me to show a different side of the Arab Egyptian woman because I grew up with very camp figures like her character. They were like Barbie dolls and had to be really pampered up even if they were just staying in. Old Hollywood chic or glam was really the rule. So all the women in my family were very nice, very domineering, but also very beautiful and extravagant.

JB – There is a big contrast between the performances of Fanny Ardant and Nadine Labaki. Labaki is very reserved while Ardant is distinctly larger than life. How did you find that contrast and build it in the performance styles?

TR – It was very important for me that Nadine Labaki had a very naturalistic and interiorized way of acting which comes more from French and European cinema culture. On the other hand the Arab actresses were a mix of theater actors, soap opera actors, etc. It allowed for many different nuances of performing and I was very interested in blending them all together in a way that feels like it has a formal unity to it. Fanny Ardant went to something a little more over the top and maybe this could get on the nerves of the audience, but I really liked the gap between the two of them.

JB – Why did you decide that the boy in the film should be a boy instead of a girl, since in many ways it seems to represent her childhood self?

TR – Growing up my grandmother always wanted a boy and was very jealous of my mom because she was a very beautiful young woman. She cut her hair very short to defeminize her because she didn’t want to have a child who was a challenge to her directly. What’s interesting is that the boy in the movie is played by a girl actress, so there was also this ambiguity of sexes. Logically in the film it’s Sussi’s own inner child, but it’s also the child the mother would have wanted to have instead as well as the child who Sussi would have wanted to be in order to please her mother. Ultimately though it’s really her inner child and he disappears when she doesn’t really need him anymore after she comes to terms with her mom.

JB – Is it also a reflection of queer identity and a sign of some queer subtext in the film?

TR – Well, even if it doesn’t talk about that subject, I think it’s a very camp film and I think it’s very much in queer culture. There are these Almodovar-esque or John Waters-esque references of these over the top women. So it definitely has a place there.

JB – I really appreciated that the many over-the-top elements were mixed with a lot of restraint. It comes across visually as well: the cinematography is very graceful, but also very extravagant. The image is always glimmering and glowing, there’s a lot of soft focus and the desert looks gorgeous in it. Can you talk about where the visual language came from?

TR – I talked with the DoP, Thomas Hardmeier, and we both wanted to have this sense of nostalgia throughout – to make it look like an old movie set nowadays. He used very soft lenses that made the actresses even more beautiful than they already are, which isn’t easy. It has this kind of softness of memory to it. In the Mood For Love [Wong Kar-wai, 2000] was definitely a reference. And Erin Brockovich (Steven Soderbergh, 2000) as well for the sandier, dustier vibes. We wanted to treat the image like a painting and to have a camera that feels fixed in time.

JB – You also have a lot of very graceful, subtle movements throughout.

TR – Yes and we also had to adapt sometimes like in the desert scene, which is the only scene where we used a handheld camera because we wanted to create a sense of movement or distance that simply wasn’t possible in that setting otherwise. Fortunately it also brought a little bit of fresh air to the scene, it was something different.

JB – I appreciated how classical it was and how elegant the movements were because a lot of films at festivals these days overuse handheld so much.

TR – Definitely.

JB – Can you also talk about how you chose to depict Egypt? You incorporate a lot of the iconic iconography of Egypt, but it’s also very restrained. You show us the pyramids, but only from a distance and through trees. You see Alexandria, but you’re not…

TR – In awe.

JB – Exactly. And if you are it’s only very momentary.

TR – I wanted to depict Egypt in a way that I fantasise about it or used to romanticise it during childhood. It feels to me like a country that is visually stuck in time, but in a good way. Every time I go back it feels like it’s exactly where I left it. It has this vibe of old world charm to it in a way. I think you could believe it takes place in the ’60s if there weren’t some references to it actually being nowadays. Also I wanted to show a beautiful side to Egypt without going into the touristy part of it or overselling it.

JB – It was beautifully shot, especially that one shot of Alexandria where she’s looking out from the balcony…

TR – Of the corniche? Yea, I didn’t want to oversell it, but Alexandria always has this nostalgia to it. When people talk about Alexandria they are reminded of their summer childhood holidays and the beach. There is always this flair to it. It’s a city that has changed immensely and not necessarily in a good way.

JB – Can we also talk about the servant characters in the film? You give such tender, affectionate portraits of them compared to the more ambiguous portraits you depict of their masters. How did you develop those characters?

TR – Well, they exist. They are blends of real life characters I met during childhood. I think in Egyptian culture servants can sometimes replace the mother role and they’re very nurturing. You have a more one-to-one relationship with them on a human-basis, without as many issues coming in the way. The aunts can also be mother-replacement figures, but in a much more domineering way that’s more of a love-hate relationship. The servants are the person you run to if your heart is broken and if you have something you can’t share with anybody else. I like that Sussi has a totally different relationship with her servants. She would hug them, but she would never hug her aunt because it would feel weird.

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Tamer Ruggli is pictured at the top of this article. He is pictured alongside Joshua Bogatin in the second image. Pictures by Joshua Bogatin.

Our dirty questions to Rachel Ramsay

Posted on by victorfraga

Best known as a film producer with a career stretching about a decade and 15 films under her belt, Rachel Ramsay sits on the director’s chair for the very first time. She’s in good company. Her debut feature is co-directed by James Erskine, an experienced British documentarist who has made nearly 40 movies this century. Copa 71 premiered earlier this year at IDFA, and it’s being handled by Dogwoof. The filthy genius film documents the incredible history of the first Women’s World Cup (including the biggest match in the history of women’s sport) , an event shockingly erased from history.

Most people think that the first Women’s World Cup took place in 1991. This enlightening and impeccably assembled documentary reveals that women had an intimate relationship with the most popular sport on earth much earlier, and that they were violently removed from the pitch for shocking reasons. The film reveals that there were in excess of 100 female football teams in the UK in 1917, and it was only in 1921 that they were shut following false medical claims that the sport could hurt their ovaries. The absurd, pseudo-scientific claim travelled far, with Italy and Brazil criminalising women who dared to engage in the activity. The patriarchy sent women back to the kitchen in order to bake cookies for their husbands. It mocked and degraded female footballers. And that was just the beginning of long history of oppression.

Victor sat down with Rachel at the 3rd Red Sea International Film Festival, where the film showed in the International Spectacular section.

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Victor Fraga – Copa 71 claims that the footage was kept secret for 50 years. Could you please tell us more about your research process, and how you compiled the long-missing material?

Rachel Ramsay – We knew that the tournament had been broadcast live using the same infrastructure as the 1970 men’s World Cup. We had about 80 seconds of the footage we found on AP. After that, we had to keep exploring in order to find out who had any original recordings. One of the most incredible moments of the whole filming process was just a few weeks before we finished the film. We had an answer to a social media call that we put out in Mexico. It said: “have you or any of your families watched the 1971 tournament? And do you have any footage?”, And this guy got in touch and he had been digitising his grandfather’s Super 8 collection, and he just sent a Vimeo link. And we were like; “Whaaat???”. So all of the shots from the stands or from the touchline are from Pablo Asuela’s grandfather. He very kindly allowed us to take the originals and upscale them to 4K. And in exchange, all he wanted was a donation to his ecological sanctuary in Northern Mexico.

VF – What is the relevance of showing Copa 71 in the country [Saudi Arabia]that has invested large sums of money primarily in men’s football, and where a women’s football team was first established last year?

RR – I think that question kind of answers itself. I think it’s clear why it’s important to show this film in this country. I won’t speak so much to men’s football, which I think is on a different scale and level of politics than the women’s game right now. Specially here. But we can say that this is big for a country that has women’s sport, women’s sport being played in public, in its infancy. There is a space to learn from so many of the mistakes that have been made before. So many things have been taken for granted.

VF – Such as?

RR – Well, final message of the film is that you can’t you can’t take hard-won rights for granted. Just because you feel like the world has changed it doesn’t mean things can’t roll back very badly.

VF – Your film denounces Fifa’s dirty tactics. Did Fifa directly or indirectly interfere or attempt to boycott your film?

RR – Fifa have no interest in the tournament that we’ve been covering because, as they’ve said, they didn’t own it. Yeah. We also had to check with Fifa when we found the footage and we wanted to make sure that we’re not stealing footage of Fifa today.

VF – So they didn’t try to pull your rug?

RR – They didn’t pull the rug from under us. They knew that we were making it because we had to license other footage from them from the 1970 Men’s World Cup and from the Women’s World Cup recently. That is all Fifa’s footage. So they know that we were engaged with that.

VF – Presumably you had to pay a lot of money for that?

RR – Of course they wouldn’t give us the footage for free. We’re in the early stages of screening this film around the world. I’m not quite sure if people have watched it yet. We’ll have to find out [how Fifa reacts].

VF – Did you try to interview them?

RR – Not with regards to what they did 50 years ago. It was a very different organisation then. We know that, regardless of what’s happened, Fifa have been investing hugely in the women’s game in the last few years.

VF – The Mexican players of the 1971 World Cup were never remunerated. That has not changed entirely, has it? I mean, the salary of female footballers is vastly inferior to male footballers. Do you have anything to say about that?

RR – Yes. I think one of the takeaways of of the film is that the themes that we’re discussing – new women’s physicality, women’s role outside of the home, financial independence and equal pay – these were all conversations that were happening in the tournament over 50 years ago. And how much of that has changed in 50 years?

VF – The Mexican team gave England very warm heartfelt condolences after they defeated us. Yet England gave our own team a very cold reception upon return home. Why do you think that is?

RR – I think the establishment in Britain believed that those women had no rights in a tournament on that scale publicly in the Azteca Stadium. They saw the women as stepping outside of the space that they’d been they’d been given. And that applies to so much of society.

VF – Did that never reach British audiences at the time?

RR – It was it was reported in the press, but at the time it was so clearly not a space that women were allowed to inhabit.

VF – Is it fair to say that the Brits or the English were more sexist in that context than the Mexicans?

RR – I think it’s difficult to quantify what sexism really means in this context. I think that the Mexican people were just excited that they were given the space to enjoy the spectacle, and they did so.

VF – What about the Lionesses? They’re not in the film, are they?

RR – The current Lionesses are not in the film, no. That’s because we had a strong English presence already, and we’re interested in making it a very international idea. And also the Lionesses, you know, women’s football in England on a national level is still more recent than it was in the US [American footballer and two-time Fifa Women’s World Cup champion Brandi Chastain is a prominent character in Copa 71]. So we’re interested in what was happening in the ’90s, which was really led by the US, and the sort of the current resurgence of of women’s football, also known as women’s soccer.

VF – Why do you think happened in the US of all places?

RR – That’s a whole different film. It has to do with Title IX [a federal law] in the 1970s, which required an equal distribution of funds and colleges, which was then extended to sports. It’s the story of Billie Jean King. It’s the story of Battle of the Sexes (Valerie Faris/Jonathan Dayton, 2017). It’s a progression. Also, soccer did not have a space in the US to be taken by men as it was not considered the most important sport for men.. 

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Rachel is pictured at the top of this article. She is pictured along Victor Fraga below. Images by Victor Fraga.

Our dirty questions to Baloji

Posted on by victorfraga

Baloji is one of the most distinctive voices working in visual arts, fashion, music and movies today. His short film/music video Zombies was shown in multiple festivals around the globe, including the São Paulo Short Film Festival and m-v-f- (a music video festival which I curate). The film is a riff on the “zombification” of the youth, and how the lives of young people get sucked in by social media and mobile phones.

Born in Congo and based in Belgium, Baloji showed his debut feature Omen at the 3rd Red Sea International Film Festival (RSIFF), the European country’s submission to the 2024 Oscars. It won the New Voice Award at the Cannes Film Festival (where it was shown at the Un Certain Regard selection). It was in the Official Competition at the 3rd Red Sea Film Festival (RSFF) ,where it won the Best Cinematic Contribution Award. Multimedia exhibition Augurism, which is inspired by Omen, is currently at show in Antwerp.

We sat down to talk to at the the Ritz-Carlton in Jeddah, where the RSIFF takes place. Baloji was impeccably fashionable, wearing a brown male skirt, necklaces, rings, and a gorgeous fedora hat. He had just flown in from Los Angeles, where he was doing promotion for the Oscars. He was a little jet lagged and quite dazzled by the opulence of the Ritz Carlton. Nevertheless, he had a lot to say, and revealed some of the dirty secrets behind his baroque debut. Here is our full conversation. Enjoy!

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Duda Leite – So, you just got here yesterday from Los Angeles. What are your first impressions of Jeddah and the Red Sea Film Festival so far?

Baloji – It’s a mixed feeling. It’s a very strange place. There’s something related to soft power. Everything here is connected to soft power. I’ve just walked into this hotel (the Ritz). It’s very questionable. I feel there is a demonstration of power.

DL – Koffi [Omen‘s protagonist, played by Marc Zinga] is a Congolese man who is living in Belgium, just like you. And his Swalihi name is Zamobolo which means “sorcerer”. And your name, Baloji, also has a similar meaning. Are these autobiographical elements?

B – There is not so much of me in the character of Koffi. Because, just like his mom says: Koffi is a coward. He is afraid and scared of his social assignment. He is feeling some sort of christian guilt. That is why I wanted to mirror Koffi with Paco [Marcel Otete Kabeya], who is also a sorcerer, but who reacts in the opposite way. While Koffi is a coward, Paco says: “if you treat me like a dog, I’ll bite you like a dog”. So it’s interesting that two people having the same assignment, act in a totally different way. I thought that was interesting. Koffi is afraid to play against tradition, speak up his mind, and voice his opinion. He wants to please everybody. He cuts his hair, he wants to pay the money to his father, he wants to do all these things. I think it’s interesting to play with that. I am much closer to the Paco character.

DL – I love the opening sequence. when a woman crosses the screen riding a horse and then stops by a river, puts out her breast and pours a mix of blood and milk into the river. What is the meaning of breastfeeding in the film?

B – For me, breastfeeding is a metaphor for postpartum depression. When you don’t want to have that kid. My idea is that she doesn’t want to have that kid, so she can not breastfeed him, and instead of milk, it’s milk mixed with blood that’s coming out of her. Because she rejects that baby so much. We know people like this that reject their pregnancy, so it was a way for me to talk about that. As Mama Mujila [Yves-Marina Gnahoua] explains in the end, there was a whole process where she had to remove all this milk mixed with blood out of herself. Which is a metaphor of the Augure, which is an oracle. That comes from the Greek times. It has to do with all the birds in the film.That is why there are so many birds in the film. In the Greek times, birds could tell you if it was going to rain, for example. They could see what was going to happen. That is what we call the “Omen”. Or we could call it “déja vu”. Something that we know will happen, but that we have yet to experience. She is in that place and this is why there are so many scarecrows. In that particular place, dreams can not come, because there are no birds. The scarecrows make them go away. And in the end, when the scarecrows are burning, she can finally have access to it. She can finally say: “you know what, I can also have dreams”.

DL – The film has so many levels and different symbols.

B – It’s a lot, I know. But this one is fully loaded.

DL – Which are the other ones?

B – There are a lot, but I think this is one of the most important because she is in this place where she cannot have access to dreams. And there is a moment when she says to Koffi: “I am jealous of you, because you can escape”. Certain people don’t know that they can do that. Because society is so strong that they can make you believe certain situations. For me, Mama Mujila is the main character of the film.

DL – Paco buries his sister Maya. was that scene inspired by the Ghanaian funeral rituals.

B – You mean by the way the coffin is decorated?

DL – Yes, where the coffin is pink and they are all dancing.

B – That was connected to his dress. I wanted the coffin to match his dress. Because his dress is a tribute to his sister’s dress that he kept. He is living in a strange mind set. That is why he and Koffi have a lot in common: they are both considered sorcerers, they both have epileptic attacks, when one is falling, the other is in his bed. So we understand they have something in common. And it’s really crucial that we get that they have this connection between them. But for Paco it is all about the grieving for his sister.

DL – What is the reason for them to have the epileptic attacks? Was that some kind of metaphor about Africa?

B – No, I didn’t go that far (laughs). When somebody has an epileptic attack, people don’t understand, and they think it’s a way to lose themselves. That means that the spirits came over. Not in the film, but in society.

DL – But what about in the film?

B – That’s the connection between them. And that is the reason they are considered sorcerers.

DL – You did the costume design for the movie, alongside Elke Hoste. Could you please tell us more about importance of costume design in the creative process?

B – I come from graffiti. Street art. Graffiti and graphic design. Then I did design on textile, and then I worked on textile fabrics. I became really interested in fabrics. And just like everything else, fabrics tell a story. What people wear says something about them. Something about where you are coming from. And then I met some beautiful costume design and fashion teachers, and they showed me I could do it. If you have an idea on how to create costumes, you can do it. They are just going to help you on how to transform the idea into something palpable. And that’s what I did.

DL – You have an exhibition on display now in Antwerp called Augurism, inspired by the film. What are your next multidisciplinary projects?

B – Actually we are trying to shoot something in April in Inhotim, Brazil. I’m already talking to them. The sooner the better. I really want to do it. The only problem we have is, on December 22nd we’ll know if we’re shortlisted for the Oscars. Then I’ll know more.

DL – How much did your work as a musician inspire you in Omen?

B – You know, I also did the music for this film.

DL – But there was a different name on the credits.

B – There was a composer, but we were not happy with what she did. But for legal reasons, her name is in the credits. But I did the music.

DL – But how did working as a musician help you to. create the structure of the film?

B – It influences a lot. It helped me create all the different layers. You enter one song for the beats. And then you pay attention to the lyrics. That means you can enjoy all the colours, and all the style, the aesthetics, but then you can also have different layers for the content. For the social point-of-view, for the political point0-of-view. And you can have a different approach to it. It doesn’t mean that you’re hiding them, it just means you have different layers to understand situations – that’s what music teached me.

DL – This is a very African movie, but it is representing Belgium in the Oscars. How does that feel for you?

B – It represents Belgium, but technically it’s a Congolese film. I am Congolese. But this is a huge step for the Belgium commission, which selects which films are going to represent the country. With their colonial past, this is something very important that they did. It’s my first film, so it was a big opportunity for me. I couldn’t say no. Also, there is no Congolese Oscar submission. This means that we are not eligible for an Oscar. It doesn’t exist. So we have to wait to create a committee, until we are eligible. And I had my first investor in Belgium. I could not say no. That’s very different from Brazil and the rest of South America. That is why you Brazilians have more freedom in the films that you’re making. African cinema depends on European funding, mostly French. If you don’t tell a narrative that pleases French people, you don’t have money. It’s as simple as that. You can’t make your film. And the French keep on telling me no, this is not cinema. They kept on telling me no. That was basically the only work they had for me: no. So I’ve learned from this. It’s a very small budget film, because only Belgium and the Netherlands said yes. Otherwise, the film would not exist and I’d not be here talking to you.

Our dirty questions to the Malaysian tigress

Posted on by victorfraga

Amanda Nell Eu is probably Malaysia’s hottest filmmaker working today. Her debut feature Tiger Stripes is a teen horror movie that flirts with comedy. The film got the Grand Prix Award at Cannes Critics Week, and it was Malaysia’s choice to represent the country at next year’s Oscars, in the International Feature category. The movie has traces of Brian De Palma’s Carrie (1976), such as the cruel schoolgirls in the toilet. It also has flavours of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010): both films were filmed in a dense rainforest inhabited by creatures with laser eyes (the biggest difference is that the Malaysian filmmaker favours pink instead of red). It’s a movie made for the TikTok generation. Despite being billed as a horror movie, it is is filled with the tongue-in-cheek humour reminiscent of the teen movie Mean Girls (Mark Waters, 2004). It is also a feminist film: a girl’s fights for the freedom to be her true self.

I saw the film the previous day and was genuinely moved and impressed with the outcome. I do not share the views of DMovies’ editor Victor Fraga (who reviewed the film earlier this year in Munich).

This conversation in the sumptuous Garden of the Ritz Carlton Hotel, the heart of the 3rd Red Sea International Film Festival (in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia). The fashionable Amanda was wearing bright neon green eyeshadow and very talkative, ignoring the timekeeper’s pleas to end our conversation.

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Duda Leite – Tiger Stripes was heavily cut in your home country, Malaysia. How did you feel about such censorship? Fortunately, the Red Sea Film Festival showed the uncut version.

Amanda Nell Eu – It was very sad actually. As a Malaysian filmmaker of course I was prepared for some form of censorship. If you want to release a film in Malaysia, every film has to go through censorship. But the censorship in my country is not very clear. They are very vague. Sometimes things get censored, and 10 years ago, they weren’t. It’s a very difficult place to navigate. So when we went to speak to them, and went through the process, what hurt me the most was what they cut out. Which was the very point of the film: there is so much beauty in this girl. And I think the beautiful part is when she’s free, and just being a young girl. And all those things in general were not shown, they were cut out. So I was like, “that’s not my film”. That’s why I had to say something. Of course, it was for my artistic expression, at the same time to respect the audience to watch the same film that won in Cannes. But when they see the film, it’s not the same one. That was a painful experience to go through. So I had to say something about it. (Amanda made an official statement about that).

DL – I guess censorship is always very random. We had a long period of censorship in Brazil, where I’m from, during the dictatorship and I know how random it could be. Are there many women directors working now in Malaysia?

ANU – There are a few, but you can count them in one hand. It’s the same everywhere else. There are more now, but still not enough. It’s always been a male dominated world. But there are a few. Maybe five. At least prominent.

DL – Do you feel that’s changing?

ANU – I think it is a bit. We are having a few more women voices in the world. It’s really great that Tiger Stripes did so well. And it’s female-led, with a predominantly female crew. I’d love to see more women in the camera department and technical crew in Malaysia. We’re getting there slowly. The steps are moving. When I was a cinema student, it was hard to find female mentors. It was hard to find female directors. All the great legends were male. It’s empowering when you start seeing women in these positions and be prominent in the industry. I think that would give a lot of young women reason to be inspired and go for it.

DL – Talking about the film, I thought it was very original, at the same time it made me think it was a mix of Brian De Palma’s Carrie and Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee. Were they references?

ANU – Of course! We worked on this film for five or six years. I grew up watching Carrie. When I was a teenage girl, I watched it and thought it was amazing. Love all the blood and that weird story of a girl finding herself. That was definitely an inspiration. I love horror. It was a huge influence not only for the film, but for me as a person. You always get influenced by so many things. Apichatpong is a legend in my region. So you can’t shy away from what he’s done and produced. It speaks to us. But I guess it’s also mine, and I’m telling it with so much of my personality. And it has so many of my influences. And my influences are not only films, it’s music, punk music, pop music. The colour pink is so me!!! I think I am original, and I like to put a lot of myself. Also, another big reference is the film Mean Girls, which I love. That was also an inspiration.

DL – Tiger Stripes is a horror movie, but it’s also a teen movie. I like the way you mix all these two genres. Was that combination something intentional?

ANU – I always like to play with horror. I grew up watching horror films. I love to use those elements, like claws and things like that. That’s my sense of humour. I find a lot of sense of humor when it comes to horror. I’m the kind who claps when I see lots of blood. And I feel you need to have a sense of humor to really enjoy it. But at the same time, I’m talking about themes that I feel very strongly about. Like the freedom of a young girl’s expression. It’s my personality. I want to have fun when I make the film.

DL – I want to ask you about the use of pink. When you see the eyes of the creatures, they have pink lasers. You’ve mentioned before that in the tradition of Asian culture, the spirits would have red eyes, just like they did in Uncle Boonmee. Why did you choose pink?

ANU – I just love pink! I always talk to my art director who is also my costume designer, and every time she asks me about a colour, I always say pink. And she’s like “why”? I don’t know. It just feels right. It’s one of my favorite colors. I’m kind of playing with these social expectations that pink is for girls, and blue is for boys. I want to push it further. If she’s going to turn into a monster, I want her laser eyes to be pink. And make it dirty, and make it monstrous. With all the baggage that pink carries.

DL – Since we are here in Jeddah at the Red Sea Film festival, how has the Festival been so far for you?

ANU – It’s been great! It’s beyond my expectation of how it would be. It’s very impressive to show the film without any censorship. It meant a lot to me. Malaysia is an Islamic country, just like Saudi Arabia. And it was never my intention to offend anyone or cause any controversy. It’s just a film about a young girl expressing herself. And loving all the monstrous sides of it. So to have it shown here without any censorship makes it very clear what censorship actually is. It’s really nor to protect the people, but really to reinforce whomever is in the political power. Because it makes no sense anymore. So it was amazing to show the uncensored version of the film here.

DL – Sexuality plays a big part in the film. In which ways is the film empowering for young girls?

ANU – I’ve seen all these films of coming of age, like Carrie. And they are really about sexuality, but I think this time I really pushed the idea of sexuality. We have a lot of issues when a young girl has her period, because sometimes she can have it when she’s 8 years old. But when you are eight years old, you’re just learning about these pressures of society, of being a woman, and the things that change because you had your period, and being treated not as a child anymore, but as an adult, and I find that very strange. Because you’re still a child. So it was very important for me in Tiger Stripes, that even with her transformation, she’s a monster and whatever, but she is still a child. That’s why I have that ending, when she’s dancing, and she is still as playful as she was in the beginning. That was very important for me. Go against all these social expectations of what happens when you have your period. And how your life changes. It shouldn’t change. You’re still a little kid, and you should still be able to have fun. And do all sorts of crazy things.

DL – I loved the way you’ve incorporated the TikTok videos in the film. I know that speaks directly to the younger generation. Was that your intention?

ANU – Yes, like you’ve said: TikTok is all about this younger generation. They all look at things on a vertical screen from a screen this size. That’s how they’re getting their information from. Their social life is on it. They are showing how their bodies change. So this is a very important gaze for them. So for the TikTok parts in the film, I asked the girls to record it themselves. This is not our gaze anymore. It’s their gaze so they’ve recorded it themselves.

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Amanda is pictured at the top of this interview. She is pictured alongside Duda in the second picture. Images by Duda Leite

Our dirty questions to Valerie Delpierre

Posted on by victorfraga

Now on its 23rd edition, the REC Tarragona International Film Festival is a meeting point for filmmakers, industry pundits and movie lovers. The event has two competitive strands, as well as a film incubator known as RecLab. DMovies‘ editor Victor Fraga met with Monaco-born Valerie Delpierre, the founder of Inicia Films, the woman who helped to catapult Pilar Palomero, Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren and recent Golden Dear winner Carla Simon to fame. She also the producer behind Paula Ortiz’s Teresa, which opened the Festival this year.

They talk about the importance of industry labs, working with female directors, reaching the UK market, and the linguistic and cultural diversity of Spanish cinema!

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Victor Fraga – Please tell us about your film journey until you reached Tarragona, and the significance of taking part at REC.

Valerie Delpierre – I had many experiences at REC. For example, last year we went to the work-in-progress Lab. I took 20,000 Species of Bees (Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren, 2023), we were in the process of editing it. The director and us producers believed that we were very close to the final version. We went to REC for the final feedback coming from professionals. People used to watching films, and who can also advise on how to improve editing. That’s because you get so close to your own material that you lose sight of what you are doing. It was very useful. From there we went to Berlin. We thought we could go to Generation [a secondary strand at the Berlinale], but the advice was so good that we ended up getting into the Official Competition!

VF – You have produced what’s perhaps the most beautiful and devastating film from the perspective of a small child that I have seen in my life. Please tell us how Summer 93 (Carla Simon, 2017) came to being?

VD – Carla and I had the opportunity to work together on a short film. She was a friend of someone working with us. She was in her final year at the London Film School. She needed a producer here because she was living in the UK, and the whole film took place in Catalonia. The film was called Those Little Things. So I asked her whether she planned to do a feature film, and she sent me a couple of pages, and I thought it could be a great film. It was such a personal project. I thought we should find a way to transform it into a movie, not just personal therapy. So we started shooting!

VF – Motherhood (Pilar Palomero, 2022), similarly to in Summer 1993, used non-professionals to outstanding results. Is this a mere coincidence? Do you regularly work with such actors?

VD – The director decides and I just follow them. It’s never a random decision, it has to make sense. In Motherhood, it made sense because Pilar found this group of girls who already lived together. They had the energy, the emotional experience and the complicity. It really trust Pilar because we worked together in Schoolgirls (2020), another feature film with non-professionals. I just knew she could do it!

VF – Could you please tell us about the journey of 20,000 Species of Bees, from Berlin all the way to general release in many European countries, including the UK. Except for Almodovar, this is a rare achievement for Spanish cinema, and perhaps even more for Basque cinema?

VD – Almodovar and [Alejandro] Amenabar!!!

That was something amazing with Summer 93, but this was seven years ago, and things have changed a lot since. It was a great opportunity to reach audiences in cinemas before it reached platforms. Fiorella from Luxbox did a great job. We put a lot of effort into finding the right distributor.

VF – Spanish cinema is increasingly diverse from a cultural and linguistic perspective. You have done Basque [20,000 Species of Bees], Catalan [Summer 93] and Aragonese [Motherhood] cinema, and a Galician film won San Sebastian for the first time this year [Jaione Camborda’s The Rye Horn]. What is it that enabled such phenomenon, such decentralisation to take place?

VD – That’s mainly because we have a diverse number of filmmakers, male and female, coming from many parts of the country. We are very different from France. It took a long time for French cinema to tell a story outside Paris. We have an industry set in Catalonia, Galicia, Andalucia, etc. It has to do with politics. We are close to federalism. It’s also a question of maturity. And we have regional funds.

VF – You have worked almost entirely with female filmmakers, except perhaps for Alex Lora. Is this a conscious choice?

VD – Not really, but I’m very happy with the results [laughs]. I have also worked with a few male directors.

VF – Does it make a difference working with male and female directors?

VD – Not really; it’s more to do with the individual. Working with Pilar, Carla, Estibaliz is different. On the other hand, we try to get at least 50% of the team to be women.

VF – Are international co-productions the way forward, or can such arrangements compromise the integrity of the story being told?

VD – A co-production should never compromise the integrity of the story. It has to work with the ideal of the film. It’s also a question of maturity. I used to focus on first feature films, meaning it’s not easy to find producers abroad. I feel more prepared to do an international co-production now.

VF – What is your message to emerging Spanish filmmakers struggling to finance their first film?

VD – Well, I don’t think it’s that hard to finance your first feature in Spain. Now if you want to be ambitious, then it’s more difficult. This means making a film with more than €3 million, or making your second or your third feature film.

VF – Any comments on the political events that shook Spain in the past two weeks [the reelection of the Socialist Party, and the controversial amnesty of Catalonian leaders), and whether they may affect Spanish cinema at all?

VD – Unfortunately politicians are relevant to our industry [laugh]. We have to wait and see how the ministers will act. Right now, I would say it’s positive. We can count on their support.

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Valerie is pictured at the top of this article. On the second image, she is pictured with Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren). On the third image, she is pictured alongside Javier Garcia Puerto, REC’s artistic director. Images by Inicia Films and REC.

Our dirty questions to Brittany Snow

Posted on by victorfraga

Brittany Snow has been acting since she was a child, appearing in the US soap opera Guiding Light and episodic dramas including Seaquest DSV and From the Earth to the Moon. Her transition behind the camera, came first with the 2019 short film Milkshake. Her feature debut Parachute (2023), co-written with Becca Gleason is a thoughtful film that tackles heavy issues of eating disorders and mental health.

The New York City set story takes place over seven years, and begins with Riley (Courtney Eaton), sitting outside an eating disorder clinic. Her best friend Casey (Francesca Reale) picks her up and persuades her to go out that night to a karaoke bar, where she meets stranger, Ethan (Thomas Mann). The attraction is immediate, but Riley explains that she shouldn’t enter into a relationship during her first twelve months of recovery. An awkward encounter back at her apartment temporarily extinguishes their lust. However, unable to deny the attraction for long, they decide against a romantic relationship only after sleeping together.
The film’s issues are not thematic concepts, but entry points into a conversation about the difficulty of loving ourselves and being comfortable in our own company, the perils of co-dependency and how we help people in the most difficult of circumstances.

Parachute premieres at the 31st edition of Raindance!

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Paul Risker – Parachute is your debut feature. How did the expectations compare to the realities of the experience, and has it always been your ambition to direct?

Brittany Snow – It wasn’t my ambition to direct. It seemed too daunting and I was insecure about not ever going to a film school. I think I was surprised how much I knew through my experiences as an actor and how much I needed to trust my intuition. Sometimes it seemed a little witchy how I knew things without really understanding how. During the pandemic, I put myself through mini film school and read, watched and listened to endless research on all things directing. I also asked a lot of questions and relied on people who were gifted at their jobs.

PR – Could you please tell us about the biggest challenges that an established actor has to overcome in order to become a director?

BS – I’m not sure if I’m too established in that way but personally, my biggest hurdle was people assuming I couldn’t do it. Perhaps as a woman having grown up as a kid actor and perhaps because of the films I’ve been in, it fuelled me to be better and learn more. I really love proving people wrong.

PR – What compelled you to believe in this film and decide to tell this story at this particular point in time?

BS – I always knew I wanted to tell this story. I felt there was a lack of films about living with addiction instead of focusing on the addiction itself. I find it more interesting to see how people are trying to love, fail, do common tasks, navigate friendships and live, not just seeing the interior of a rehab. Many people regard eating disorders and body dysmorphia as something vain or self-induced and I tried to show how all addictions are connected; people just use different drugs of choice. I felt this film could be a way for someone to feel less alone in their struggle.

PR – Is Parachute a political film?

BS – It’s not political but it is hopefully showing a societal norm that we perhaps need to question. Today, validation is intrinsically tied to social media and comparison. It’s more of an epidemic than I think people realise and has a hugely significant impact on addiction, mental health and depression. Obviously, I don’t have the answers but I think we need to start asking the questions.

PR – How do you use cinematography and editing in order to communicate the point-of-view of your character?

BS – It was important for me to always be honest. Thankfully, this is my own experience as well, so I decided to depict how I saw things in my own head. I hoped that my honesty of how I perceived my reality, translated in a way which could feel universal. The cinematography was done in a very specific way. I wanted the story to remain timeless and romantic. I wanted the audience to fall in love with how beautiful these little moments were and how relatable they seemed, spanning different time periods, even if they are painful and dealing with a subject some might not understand. The editing was so much fun to play with and we worked for a long time to make sure the non- linear storyline was used in a way to show someone’s interpretation of memories and not just as a “cool” device.

PR – The camera respects your character’s privacy and dignity, even in moments of severe self-loathing. Do you think that conveys the private hell that she’s forced to endure, and the limitations of external support networks?

BS – That was very intentional. My first priority was to not trigger anyone who had an ED or was going through any addiction currently. When you have an eating disorder you don’t always view your body as a body, you see darkness. I wanted the camera to show the anatomy of an addiction and not the beauty. Courtney Eaton is one of the most stunning human beings I’ve ever seen but we worked together to make sure we didn’t glamorize her struggle and she graciously let me really see her in the most human way.

PR – The film effectively peers beneath body image issues, to explore its psychological and emotional causes, but not in an intellectual or preachy way. Your thoughts?

BS – Thank you. That was my goal. I would say to my producers all the time, we cannot make this movie or it’s message didactic in any way. I am not an expert nor do I claim to be. Also, I do not think this disease can be summed up in one movie. Personally, I relate and find connection in things when it’s a shared experience and not a prescriptive lesson.

PR – Cinema is often described as an empathy machine,. Could you discuss the role art plays in creating conversations about, and representations of mental health and body image issues?

BS – I think it’s the most important medium we have. It’s hard to encapsulate someone’s mental health experience by using words alone but I think people can understand and relate to it through a feeling. (As cheesy as that sounds.) Art is the sinking into and the knowingness of that shared feeling. The more people relate, the more people share their stories and the more people we can help feel not as alone.

PR – Is it correct to say that Parachute is preoccupied with the difficulty of loving ourselves and being comfortable in our own company?

BS – Definitely. Thank you for picking up on that. A huge theme I wanted to portray was our inability as humans to be in the present moment. Parachute not only describes Ethan as a crutch to help her fall, but it also describes all the “easy buttons” people use to get out of “feeling” and being with ourselves. (Social media, food, people, podcasts, people pleasing, snark etc) I wanted this movie to shed some light on how we are all doing these things in one way or another and we can help each other by recognizing that.

PR – Parachute comments on body image – women are bombarded and programmed with expectations of how they should look, and how they should care for their appearance, in ways that men aren’t. Does this need changing, and how?

BS – That is a hard question because I do think it needs changing but it is so interwoven into culture and societal norms that I feel overwhelmed with how to suggest it changing. I find it refreshing that this generation coming up now is seeing through the curtain of “perfection” and laughing at it in a way. I think it takes people becoming vulnerable and accepting of themselves. I am victim to this as much as the next person but I try to give myself grace.

PR – Parachute‘s tension derives from the conflict between Riley’s public and private lives, that are in conflict with one another. Was this intentional, and what message are you trying to get across?

BS – It definitely was my intention. There’s a great quote that says, “people have their public life, their private life and then, they have their secret life.” I wanted to be brave enough to show someone’s secret life. The things we are all trying to hide but doing to merely get by. I think one of the great things about Riley is her drive to get better. She’s actively trying to be a good person it’s just very, very difficult. I remember telling Courtney to watch The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier, 2021) as many times as she could because there was such beauty in the main character’s relentless brazen quest to find herself. (Even when seemingly selfish and difficult).

PR – A British filmmaker called Carol Morley once told me: “You take it [a film] 90% of the way, and it is the audience that finishes it. So the audience by bringing themselves: their experiences, opinions and everything else to a film is what completes it.” Would you agree that there is a transfer of ownership?

BS – I would hope so. Everything is subjective. It’s been so lovely to hear different people’s perspectives on what they related to with the film.

PR – Is filmmaking transformative, and where/how do you change as a person?

BS – This has ultimately changed me more than anything I’ve ever done. I see myself in a new way and I have a new confidence and a knowing that I didn’t have before. Filmmaking to me is curiosity. I love being curious and asking as many questions about a subject or an idea as I can. I’m very lucky I get to do this now and ask even more questions.

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The two images above are stills from Parachute. Britanny is pictured at the top of the article (image by Lara Jade)

Parachute premieres at the 31st edition of Raindance!