An Interview with Aden-Based Director Amr Gamal

An Interview with Aden-Based Director Amr Gamal

An Interview with Aden-Based Director Amr Gamal

By : Samhita Sunya

The 2018 film 10 Days Before the Wedding marked the first Yemeni-made film in decades that premiered and was commercially released in Yemen. The film is an homage to the coastal city of Aden, where audiences flocked in unprecedented numbers to wedding halls that had been converted into makeshift cinemas specifically for 10 Days’ release. It is a debut feature by Aden-based director Amr Gamal, whose previous experience has included theatre and TV productions in his hometown. Below is an interview which Samhita Sunya, assistant professor of cinema at University of Virginia, conducted with Gamal during his US tour of the film this spring, along with producer Mohsen Alkhalifi. In addition to several university screenings (University of Pennsylvania, University of Virginia, Georgetown University, Harvard University, Yale University) and a few commercial events, the film was screened at the San Diego Arab Film Festival where it won the Audience Award, the United Nations in New York, and the US Department of State in its most recent tour.

10 Days is an engaging romantic comedy that takes place in Aden. The main characters, Rasha and Ma’moon, are a young couple who, we learn, had called off their wedding some years prior because of the 2015 war in Aden. This time around, just ten days remain until their wedding, but, so, too, do many obstacles, both material and psychological: challenges of infrastructure, employment, housing, and financial resources, on the one hand; and ensuing frustration, despair, guilt, and exhaustion, on the other. The film captures not only a set of memorable characters, but also a heartfelt ode to Aden in several wide vistas, scenes that wander through its markets and lanes, and a particularly striking crane shot that gracefully sweeps up the characters, audience, and seaside city in its arc.

Samhita Sunya (SS): What led you to the decision to make a film?

Amr Gamal (AG): First of all, it was my dream. I love cinema, and since I was a teenager, I wanted to be a movie director. In my mind, cinema was the hardest thing to achieve. You needed a perfect budget, perfect knowledge, perfect timing. It was like something holy.

Theatre taught me many things, though theatre was easier—cinema was still this giant dream. Plays were a simpler choice—though eventually, some of those with whom I worked in theatre acted in the movie, and others, as crew behind the scenes! We established the theatre troupe Khaleej Aden in 2005, and we performed plays until the war in March 2015. After 2015, we were performing in an old open-air cinema. However, we were afraid, because of the bad situation and lack of security that such a venue might be vulnerable to attack.

In the meantime, by 2010, TV channels in Aden had also opened the door for us, and after the war, we had this option. We did one TV show in 2016, filmed in a completely closed place. After 2016, however, the TV channels stopped producing series because of the drop-off in sponsors after the war. Not realizing the full extent of this, we had been working tirelessly for eight months on a TV script through the end of 2017 and beginning of 2018.

Then, at the very end, we were told: Oh sorry, we do not have sponsors. It was a big shock, but it prompted me to eventually take my fate into my own hands. When my team and I were very depressed, having worked so hard on the TV script, Mohsen [Alkhalifi] asked, why don’t you take this chance to realize your dream, of making a film? I was like, you are asking me to do this NOW, in the WORST situation, when I was not doing this in better days? Yet, his words stayed in my head, and I told myself, if we do this, we would make history. It will be exceptional and huge, at least in our country’s history. We had the experience of the theatre, and also the experience of TV production—doing budgets, shooting, lighting, audio; solving technical problems as they came up; and working with cinematographers and crew. As I contemplated making a film, I thought, did I want to do a movie aimed at festivals? Or for the public? My team and I settled firmly on the latter.

SS: You speak so passionately about cinema. What did you grow up watching?

AG: My family loved movies, and I loved watching Disney films as child. I watched each and every one at home! I watched old black and white Arabic musicals, constantly singing the songs and enacting scenes. In Aden, we also have a strong sense of a connection to India—we think of ourselves as part of India in a way, dating back to the presence of administrators of British India in the nineteenth century! I was fascinated by Bollywood movies. The same open-air theatre—that I mentioned as a venue for our plays after the war—unofficially showed Bollywood movies, which I would watch frequently as a high schooler. Even if we did not have “real” cinema, I was going every Thursday to watch Bollywood movies in pretty poor-quality versions. However, I always wanted to watch there—I loved it so much for the experience, as an experience that would always give me goosebumps! If I knew they were putting on Kuch Kuch Hota Hai or Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham or Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge—again! I would go watch! Kajol has always been my crush—I loved her as a teenager, and I love her now! Also, of course, AR Rahman’s music has also been a huge inspiration for me.

SS: You have mentioned that this is the first Yemeni-made film to be released commercially in Yemen, for at least forty years. What were its precedents, as far as other Yemeni films?

AG: To my knowledge, precedents include A New Day in Old Sana’a (2005) and I am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced (2016), both of which were directed towards—and premiered at—festivals outside of Yemen. Maybe there were a few others in earlier decades, like in the 1960s? What is important is that even if there were such earlier films, these memories have faded as cinema production and even exhibition in our country also faded.

SS: Tell me a little bit about the production process, in terms of casting, rehearsing, shooting, etc.you mentioned working on TV productions. How was this different?

AG: Actually, it was not that different. There is not much infrastructure and support offered from TV channels, in the sense that you would be given a budget, and you would have to figure it out. This experience taught me how to go about this process. The main season for TV series is Ramadan, and you have to complete thirty episodes in sixty days, maximum. On this timeline, we were used to doing fifteen to twenty scenes, even thirty scenes, a day! So, shooting three to five scenes a day for a film was actually much, much easier. This tremendously improved the quality of the acting, since we were able to do more takes.

From the very outset of the decision to make a film, we had to search for exhibition venues—basically, two wedding halls in Aden that we prepared by building 6x4-meter screens out of wood pieces, covered with white paint. So even before the shooting, by day, [cowriter] Mazen and I worked on the script, and by night, [producer] Mohsen and I looked into possibilities for actually screening the film, to see if we could prepare wedding halls for its eventual exhibition by testing projectors on makeshift wooden screens, etc.

SS: It seems like the film’s storyline, about the many obstacles that stand in the way of a wedding, parallels the film’s own journey, not just in terms of obstacles, but also in terms of the importance of wedding halls in the exhibition of the film!

AG: Yes! It is like we had the same story producing the movie! Maybe what happened to Rasha and Ma’moon happened to me and Mohsen and all the people involved in making the film?! Just like Rasha and Ma’moon believe in their love and hope that everything will work out fine, the reality of the situation is that so much stands in the way of their happily ever after. We also believed in our film, but it was not easy, and we were not even sure whether people would come, especially because there were no real cinemas that were operating. We had to wait to find out, and there was a big question mark—just like you have to wait to find out if the wedding will happen at the end of the film!

SS: When was the premiere? How did it go, and what have you found in the subsequent response to the film, both in Yemen and outside, among commercial, festival-going, and university audiences?

AG: The first screening was in Aden on 21 August 2018, on Eid al Adha. I was nervous, and we did not expect a big response, especially since we had set up eight shows a day—four each, in two venues: 10 a.m., 4 p.m., 7 p.m., 9:30 p.m.

My friends told me that the early show would definitely be canceled within a day or two, since no one was likely to go to early morning shows, and that the last show, too, would be canceled because of people’s fear over attending cultural events that late in the evening. Since the war, people had been holding weddings in the afternoons out of fear of holding gatherings and having to move about the city to return home later in the night. This started to shift at the end of 2017, as people started to once again hold weddings after 8 p.m., like it was before the war.

The first-day turnout for the film was okay, but it was not huge, especially during the first and last shows. By the second day, social media had exploded with such enthusiasm, with such positive reviews. By the third day, more and more people started coming, and by the fourth day, all shows were packed! We actually had to open another slot, so we were running nine shows a day! In this way, social media played such an important role in promoting the movie.

SS: I heard that your film won an award for Best Makeup at the Jaipur Film Festival?

AG: Yes! This is a great story. I told my team, do not wear makeup. We are not going to bring in a makeup artist, since this film is about the ordinary lives of ordinary people. I even asked the actresses to leave their eyebrows alone for two months, to ensure as natural a look as possible. I asked them to put on makeup only when motivated by the plot—like for the scenes in which Rasha and her friend go out. Apparently, the jury at the Jaipur Film Festival was so impressed, presuming that we had hired a very, very talented makeup artist to achieve such a convincingly natural look!

SS: You also won the Special Jury Prize at the Aswan International Women’s Film Festival! Having seen the film, I did notice that film calls into question ideals of masculinity that are tied to wealth and aggression, and likewise, ideals of femininity that are tied to remaining demure and soft-spoken.

AG: Yes, in many commercial films, the male hero is little more than a cliché that glorifies machismo. However, in reality, women are strong at times, and men are weak at times. Steering away from clichés, we wanted to depict a more wholesome image of desirable masculinity, through men who can be determined and persevere at times, but who can also cry, are vulnerable, and can express their emotions. Similarly, our film shows women characters who are strong and funny in some moments, and fragile in others. In this way, whether in relationships or friendships, we see how these characters can complement one another through their ups and downs.

SS: While the film is in a sense a romantic comedy that revolves around the characters of Rasha and Ma’moon, the film seems to reveal another key love story between you—the filmmaker—and the city of Aden! If this is true, can you say more about this?

AG: I love Aden. More than anything in the world. I feel responsible for documenting this city, since there is no feature film that has done so. I felt that someone should take the responsibility of documenting the sea, the markets, the streets, the food, the people, the rituals. Because I love this city, I wanted to capture this and show it to people, show it to the world. It’s an exhausted city that has been through so much, and a beautiful city. In the despair that follows a war, we can lose not just loved ones and buildings and heritage, but also memories and ways of life. With this sense of the fleeting nature of beautiful moments, buildings, and spaces in Aden, I felt a kind of urgency to capture my city in the film.

Historically, cinema and theatre constituted a very important part of daily life in Aden between the 1950s and 1980s. People used to go to events, to the cinema and theatre. In the late 1980s onwards, this changed because of a civil war and subsequent control of the city by Islamist parties. People stopped going to the cinema. When our film was released last year, it was cataclysmic—again, thanks to social media! I noticed that some older people, even those who were poor, had dyed their hair and worn very old-fashioned clothes and white shoes, which seemed like clothing from the 1970s, or maybe even earlier? It seemed to me, they had been storing these items for years and years, until they finally had an occasion to wear them again for an outing!

SS: Are there other “city” films that have inspired you? Or more generally, other filmmakers or genres that you hold dear? You’ve of course mentioned the Indian film actress Kajol and music director AR Rahman!

AG: I love Youssef Chahine’s Alexandria trilogy, Woody Allen’s Manhattan, Fellini’s Roma—these are all love stories! Cinema Paradiso, too, is a film in which the place is the hero, not the people. Like Mumbai in Wake Up Sid, and also Los Angeles in La La Land.

SS: I am curious to hear you reflect on the experience of being on the US tour. Is there anything distinct about the audiences you have encountered in the United States?

AG: I can easily understand when people—from anywhere—are moved by the sad and dramatic parts of the film, but to see them react to the comedic moments in the film—this surprised me! The hardest thing is to come from a faraway place with a film that is rife with subtle and satirical jabs at very local situations, because you think that only people from the same region will understand and laugh. What has surprised me is that young people in the United States were laughing so frequently, just as if they were extensions of audiences in Aden! This is encouraging, to see that we could reach the hearts and minds of audiences outside of Aden not only through the tragic and dramatic moments, but even through the film’s very local humor!

For details and updates, follow @_AmrGamal on Twitter.

Interview With Kuwaiti Filmmakers

[With a desert to one side and an ocean to another, living in Kuwait can offer very strange experiences. The skies are never blue, approaching a disconcerting beige, and the night bathes in the surrealistic orange glow of street lamps. The ministries and government buildings have the facades of Soviet prisons, and remind one of a Kafka novel when entered. There is that Lynchian feeling of madness hiding behind the wholesome exterior that many wear, and the social customs, especially of the confused youth, are baffling.

Meqdad Al-Kout and Mousaed ‘Moos’ Khaled’s work marinates in this strangeness. Every frame is laden with the specific oddness of Kuwait, each character carrying a secret grotesquery, such as the sexually frustrated engineer of Moaz (Banana) the tribunal of mustachioed smokers at the beginning of Shanab (Moustache) or the depressed and aimless Bo 6illi. The young filmmakers have been extremely prolific, making over twelve short films between them since 2007, displaying a unique visual vocabulary inspired by European auteur attitudes. Their control of tone is a specifically developed skill of theirs, as seen in the assuredness of the short clip from the “shinou ya`ni” Youtube series. The duo’s most recent work, a collaboration called Fulan, was shown at the Dubai Film Festival, and follows a happily unproductive Kuwaiti man through his day-to-day.

In this short interview, we get to know what makes the two filmmakers tick, and why deciding to make films in Kuwait is such an interesting endeavor.]

Faisal Hamada (FH): How hard is it for you to do film in Kuwait? What obstacles lie in your way? Considering these obstacles, what keeps you there when you could just as easily move to a place that is more conducive to the work that you do?

Meqdad Al-Kout: I would assume that making a film has its own difficulties and obstacles regardless of the place, but what makes Kuwait extra special is the fact that there is no film industry, no infrastructure, no film schools, and definitely no film culture or history (except for a few attempts by Khaled Al-Sideeq for example).

The only reason I do not want to start listing the obstacles is because I do not want to start whining. I believe if you really want to make a film, you will make it regardless of your situation.

The reason why I am still making films here is because the obstacles are interesting! I love making films and in Kuwait, the field is completely untapped. So the obstacles are also a very thrilling challenge and a muse to us.

Mousaed Moos Khaled: I cannot say it is especially hard or easy to make a film in Kuwait. It depends on the project itself. Some projects take days, some take months and some, well, are never made. The first obstacle that comes to mind is not having financial support in the form of art funds and the like. Making short films does not cost much in Kuwait, but you need a small budget to be able to make a film with better quality using professional equipment and crew.  We also have a very strict/random censorship department that is the epitome of bureaucracy.  Cinema, amongst other arts, is quite neglected by the government and cultural institutions. We have an institution for music and one for theater, but none for cinema.

As for moving somewhere else to pursue acting and filmmaking, well it has been on my mind for a couple of years now. But I have lived all my life in Kuwait, it’s the place that inspires me the most and it is where I draw my material from. I am not sure how am I going to function in the USA or Canada, for example. Maybe I will never find out, or maybe I will find out and never come back home!

FH: You make a specific point to engage with the Kuwaiti dialect in your films, instead of the more widely spoken dialects, or classical Arabic, or even English. What does the Kuwaiti dialect add to your films? Does the engagement with a specific dialect of Arabic make your films harder to translate?

Meqdad Al-Kout: I try as much as possible to make films about what I know. I grew up in Kuwait and lived here my entire life, so it is only natural that I make films about the people of this country and their dialect with which I am very familiar.  I would say that the Kuwaiti dialect does not add so much to the film as much as it depicts an honest realism and situations. Foreigners might find some things harder to translate, but film is a visual medium that portrays human stories and emotions, which all of us share and relate to, no matter what part of the world you are from.

Mousaed Moos Khaled: It gives the work its identity I guess. It comes from Kuwait and it is about people who live here and Kuwaiti society. Sometimes it is really hard to translate Kuwaiti to English because of the cultural differences. It is how we mostly communicate here. It is how we understand each other. Plus, I think if you make a Kuwaiti film with Kuwaiti characters communicating in classical Arabic it will look really funny. Actually, I might do that someday!

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[Mousaed Khaled. Photo from author]

FH: To what extent does autobiography factor into your films? What is your main source of inspiration?

Meqdad Al-Kout: I started out when I was young making films about things that happened to me in my life, but then quickly moved to being interested in other people’s stories. The last three films I made are inspired by real stories about people outside of my life. I have to say that the challenge of living in Kuwait is an inspiration on its own. For example, a stroll in one of our governmental buildings is enough material for ten feature films and two TV shows, give or take.

Mousaed Moos Khaled: A lot I would say. I draw a lot from my humble experience on this planet. From observing, interacting and reflecting. I get inspired by a lot of things. Mostly films, music and comedy (TV or standup). I get inspired by hearing people share stories, and also by reading. As John Cleese put it once, “I try to be as knowledgeable as I am before I die.”

FH: Your work does not have much of a precedent in Kuwait, and in the Gulf region at large, I would argue. What drove you to make the kinds of films you make? Do you consider an audience who would appreciate it when you are making it?

Meqdad Al-Kout: I guess whatever result comes out in those films is a collective of things I have seen or heard in Kuwait, plus the kind of films I like and certain authors. I do not have a good answer to why I am making these kinds of films instead of doing something else. It could be celestial. I do not have a specific type of audience in my mind when I make a film. I know eventually this film will be shown to different people from different places and different mentalities, so I try to focus on making it the way I feel it.

Mousaed Moos Khaled: Everyone likes a certain genre or style of filmmaking because they personally connect with it somehow. You learn more from the directors you like and they influence your work because it is how you get familiar with storytelling tools.

As for the audience, well, we do have them in mind while making the films because without an audience you have nothing. We do hope they like it and we try to be as “clear” as we can.

FH: When I saw your work, and maybe it is because I know Kuwait, I immediately saw the ‘Kuwaitiness,’ whatever that means, of the work. However, your themes and aesthetics do not have a lineage in Kuwait.  Do you deal with accusations of being ‘Westernized?’ How do you react to, and deal with these accusations?

Meqdad Al-Kout: I think it is mainly because generally in this region there is no history of visual aesthetics. Poetry and prose have been the dominant form of art since forever. So, for us to start portraying our stories with visuals, we end up being influenced by Western artists and their techniques. I have not ever been accused of being westernized. I try as much as possible to be honest with showing the Kuwaiti culture as it is, regardless of the visual language that is used to show it.

Mousaed Moos Khaled: True. Definitely Westernized (or maybe globalized?) because there is no other alternatives to that when it comes to cinema in Kuwait. All the books on cinema for example come from the USA and Europe (translated to English.) And I try to watch as many films as I can from all over the world. I guess that is what shapes the image of what cinema is to me. The tools are the same all over the world, but the subject matter here is Kuwaiti.

FH: There seems to be a burgeoning art-film ‘scene’ in Kuwait with similar concerns and approaches. Can you speak a bit about this community? What is your relationship to the elder statesmen of the Kuwaiti cultural scene, such as the writers and actors of the 70s and 80s?

Meqdad Al-Kout: Mousaed is one of the few people in Kuwait that share my approach about film, if not the only one. I find it really hard being in any community in Kuwait due to my lack of interest in communities in Kuwait. I do however try to get in touch with artists who share our concerns, namely Thuraya Al-Baqsami whose short story “Winged Sofa” inspired one of my short films. Khalid Al-Sideeq is the renowned Kuwaiti director of “Bas Ya Bahar” with whom I still keep in touch.

Mousaed Moos Khaled: We have a group that works together on several short films a year. Though we might differ a lot in approach, we share one goal. We rotate our positions according to what is needed in any project. I personally have acted, written, directed, was a production manager, edited and brought food to the set. And almost all the guys in our group have done the same.

As for writers and actors from previous generations, unfortunately we are not in contact with them. Most of them have either quit working or do a project every three or four years. One well-known Kuwaiti producer, who worked on Hollywood-related projects years ago, still thinks we are kids playing around. He came on Alwatan TV once and during his interview and said, “Kuwaiti filmmakers should stop dreaming. There won’t be a cinema industry in Kuwait.”