XP Music Conference connects Arab culture with the world 

JEDDAH: When the Kuwait-born Jordanian filmmaker Darin Sallam was a baby, she was advised the story of Radieh, a younger Palestinian lady who watched from a locked cellar as disaster consumed her village. Hidden by her father, Radieh would bear witness to the violent displacement of her folks earlier than making her method to Syria, the place she handed on her story to a different younger lady. That lady would develop up, marry, and share the identical story together with her personal daughter.

“And that daughter is me,” says Sallam with a smile. “The story travelled through the years to achieve me. It stayed with me. After I was a baby, I had this worry of closed, darkish locations and I stored considering of this lady and what occurred to her. So, once I grew up and have become a filmmaker, I made a decision that this is able to be my debut characteristic.”

That debut is “Farha,” which had its regional premiere on the Pink Sea Worldwide Movie Competition this month and was awarded a particular point out on the pageant’s Yusr Awards. Impressed by the story that Sallam was advised as a baby (though Radieh has grow to be Farha — performed by newcomer Karam Taher), it addresses the horror of the Nakba (the violent elimination of Palestinians from their homeland), which is harrowingly depicted from the distinctive perspective of a younger lady trapped inside a single room.

To shoot this pivotal second in Palestinian historical past from such a restricted perspective was a daring directorial determination. Predominately set inside one room (the digital camera by no means leaves that room), the movie offers its protagonist simply two restricted views of the world outdoors — a slit within the cellar door and a small gap in one of many partitions. Consequently, Sallam relied closely on each her cinematographer Rachel Aoun, who would act as Farha’s eyes, and her sound designer Rana Eid, who can be her ears. For Aoun and Sallam, the first problem was to keep away from repeating sure photographs and angles, whereas Eid was handed the duty of recreating the sound of the Nakba.

“I talked to Rana when the script was nonetheless on paper,” says Sallam, whose earlier movie was the award-winning quick “The Parrot.” “She learn the script, we mentioned it, and he or she was drawn to the truth that sound was written and essential on this movie. I used to be, like, ‘Rana, more often than not sound is extra necessary than the camerawork and the image.’ I wished the viewers to really feel and listen to what Farha hears and that might solely be doable if the sound was excellent.”

Apparently, Sallam didn’t inform her actors the place the digital camera was, particularly when taking pictures the film’s central, traumatic sequence, which Farha is pressured to endure in hiding. That scene took 4 days to shoot, and concerned 10 actors (some educated, some not) and an enormous quantity of planning and choreography.

“We had 4 days and day-after-day we needed to choose up emotionally from the place we left off the day earlier than, so I used to be frightened about them,” says Sallam. “It was already draining and tiring and day-after-day we had to ensure we had been in the identical place, that we bought into the temper of the scene, and remembered all the pieces collectively.”

It was robust, not simply due to the bodily calls for being positioned upon the actors, however due to the psychological weight of what was being portrayed. After the movie’s preliminary screening in Jeddah, the actress Sameera Asir (Um Mohammad) stated that taking pictures such painful scenes had affected her deeply on an emotional stage. She was not alone. “A few of the crew members had been crying behind the monitor whereas taking pictures, remembering their households and their tales, and the tales they heard from their grandparents,” says Sallam.

Though a witness and never an energetic participant, Farha is the movie’s point of interest all through. The digital camera spends greater than 50 minutes contained in the cellar together with her, which is why Sallam knew the efficiency of Taher would make or break the movie.

“Individuals want to like her and really feel together with her and have compassion in direction of her. She must be cussed and naughty and, in some ways, I used to be very particular about what I wished. I used to be searching for this uncooked materials — a lady who had by no means acted however was prepared to commit. I used to be searching for the best lady and I knew I’d see it in her eyes. These shiny and passionate eyes. And once I met Karam it wasn’t truly the audition that made me wish to put money into her extra. She was very shy. She was 14 on the time (15 when taking pictures started), however I gave her some homework in regards to the Nakba and he or she despatched me a message quickly after saying, ‘That is the homework you requested me to do.’ And I stated, ‘OK, she’s .’”

The second time Sallam met Taher she was extra comfy and able to study, in order that they launched into a sequence of one-on-one performing workshops collectively. “One of many issues that I like is working with actors — and non-actors particularly — so I labored with Karam for a couple of months and he or she was dedicated,” says Sallam. “And I used to be testing that. Is she approaching time? Is she cancelling different stuff together with her pals? That was signal. Her dedication and fervour and dedication had been there.”

For Taher, who had attended the audition virtually on a whim, it was a tricky few months of steep studying. “After I auditioned I went again and I advised my mum, ‘No, that’s not going to occur. I don’t assume they preferred my audition or my performing,’” she says. “I used to be so nervous and shy originally and it was a protracted journey to be trustworthy. It was Darin who was with me the entire time, getting me into the character, serving to me to achieve this level the place I used to be comfy. I really feel like I needed to speak in confidence to Darin, and I did. I trusted her a lot. I opened as much as her greater than I did to anybody else, which helped me to get all of my anger, all of my emotions and feelings out so I used to be in a position to end a scene completely the way in which she wished it to be.”

Her hardest scenes had been two separations, says Taher. The primary, from her father (Ashraf Barhom), the second, from her greatest buddy Farida (Tala Gammoh). Nonetheless, the movie additionally consists of scenes which can be hardly ever tackled in regional cinema, together with urination and Farha’s first interval.

“I wished to point out these items as a result of it’s pure and it’s what would occur to you or me if we had been in her footwear,” explains Sallam. “I wasn’t afraid to do it, I used to be frightened that Karam wouldn’t really feel comfy, so I needed to work together with her and I made positive she was comfy with the crew and nobody was within the room however me and the digital camera.”

Many individuals didn’t need “Farha” to be made, Sallam says. The the reason why will grow to be instantly apparent to anybody who watches it. Though the occasions of 1948 are coated in numerous books, poems, articles, and documentaries, the Nakba is never proven in fictionalized cinematic type.

“I’m not afraid to inform the reality. We have to do that as a result of movies reside and we die,” says Sallam. “That is why I made a decision to make this movie. Not as a result of I’m political, however as a result of I’m loyal to the story that I heard.”