Egyptian director Omar Hilal, whose debut Arabic comedy ‘Voy! Voy! Voy!’ is the country’s official nomination for the Oscars 2024, is enjoying the proverbial last laugh.
He recalls a time when established Arab stars rejected the opportunity to be part of his celebrated film — a smartly made comedy centred on illegal immigration and the outlandish lengths to which many will go to migrate to the West in search of a better life.
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00:00The aim is the festivals as well as the box office and he would say I think more, more box office than, I said man but the festivals, but the festivals and what bigger festival could there be than being selected by the country to go to the Oscars.
00:18What was the toughest part about this project Omar?
00:20Various stages of difficulty. First of all, you're not making a genre film.
00:26There's nothing, you can't actually put this film in a pot. It's a drama but it makes you laugh. It's
00:34a thriller but it's also, you know, it's a true story. It's got possibly political tones,
00:43social tones, so it's this mix of stuff. Two, working with a non-film star hero.
00:54Three, a personal difficulty which is that I was playing three roles. I was, I wrote it,
01:01I produced it and I directed it. When you're doing that, each one of those roles wants
01:09their 100% and you can't have the 100% of it anyway.
01:13This film has quoted so much of love. I mean, if you look at social media, people discussing about
01:19it. As a filmmaker, you must be so proud, right? And it's also Egypt's submission to the Oscars.
01:25Honestly, I couldn't be, I couldn't thank God more. I couldn't be happier.
01:32Hard work pays off and I aimed at that, I aimed at all of what you're talking about
01:39but I didn't expect it to be A, that quick or that big.
01:44Just to be honest. But I did aim to make a film that pleases the crowd and pleases the critics.
01:51And I kept telling that to the producer. I said, to my co-producer, I said,
01:58let's go for, you know, the aim is the festivals as well as the box office.
02:04And he would say, I think more box office. I said, man, but the festivals, but the festivals
02:11and what bigger festival could there be than being selected by the country to go to the Oscars?
02:17I mean, you know, it's massive that way and I'm thanking God for it and I didn't expect
02:25the masses to love it like that.
02:28What was your brief to the actors? I mean, did you just tell them like,
02:32listen, just, you know, be in this, right? Let's go, we'll figure out as we go along or are you
02:38a method director where you tell them this is what I need of you and you do it?
02:43I was very precise. I mean, obviously every role is different. Every actor, every scene is
02:51different. But I knew exactly what I wanted. So some of them, they were all very good, but some
02:58of them would try to take the, you see, I'll tell you what, people think when they read the script,
03:06oh, this is going to be a comedy. We're going to make people laugh. So they come in and try and
03:10make you laugh in the acting. And I kept telling them, no, guys, the acting is dry. It's a drama
03:17that will make you laugh. It's not a funny film that has drama. It's the reverse. So that took,
03:24I had to guide that from day one to the last day. And even some of my actors, some of my actors
03:32would say, you know, oh, he doesn't like humor because they would keep adding lines that that
03:37are funny. I said, guys, I love you, but don't give me jokes. You know, what I want is that you
03:45deliver the script and believe me, the humor will come through.
03:48That's what, you know, it's more a satire than your laugh out loud comedy, right? I mean,
03:53that's a very difficult tone to strike, don't you think? I mean, without making it so obvious,
03:58the humor is not in your face. It's not a physical comedy. You said you didn't want
04:03them to be buffoons at the end of the day. Not at all.
04:07But dealt with with a light hand. Were you always good at this? I mean,
04:12are you also equally surprised at your own skills, Omar?
04:15You know, I don't want to sound egotistical, but yeah, I've been doing, I've been doing comedy
04:21advertising for 20 years. Alhamdulillah, thankfully at award winning levels, you know,
04:25around the world. So, I like, I like comedy that is not obvious.
04:32Right.
04:32And that's sort of where I have excelled in the last 20 years.
04:38How difficult is it to get funding and was it difficult to convince people?
04:41Funding was, I had approached Image Nation, Abu Dhabi,
04:47via a friend of mine and then when I told Hefzy that I approached him, he said, oh yeah,
04:53we work a lot together, a lot on films. So, they connected again on it and then
04:58Image Nation got Vox involved. And you know, what was very difficult for me was that
05:04nobody gave me feedback on my script. Everybody said, we love it. Shoot it.
05:09This is a rare, rare, rare occasion where we've got nothing to say. It's very good. Just do it.
05:16So, it's very difficult when you're the, you know, you're the one who's doing it all.
05:22It's like, I always wonder how, for example, Mel Gibson or Clint Eastwood can act and direct
05:29their own performance. Who tells them that, you know, that's right, that was a good take.
05:35This was the situation here.
05:37Right.
05:38I had nobody to, to really feed off. Then appeared my assistant director,
05:45who's a very, you know, he's a thinking man and he became my, the guy that I bounce ideas.
05:51Would you do this again if you were to do it?
05:53Never. Never. It was too difficult. It was too difficult. I would like to produce and direct
06:04but produce as in gather, as an executive produce, you know, gather all the strings and then
06:16it moves on. But I want to sit down on the set and go, yeah, you know what, we'll finish that
06:20scene tomorrow and nobody will tell me, oh, we don't have the money. I don't, you deal with it.
06:26I want to do it again, you know, or not again or more, whatever, because that was, I had a,
06:33a scene by scene panic. We can't get two cameras on the scene. Okay. So, you know, that scene
06:39three days ahead, we had 20 extras, kill 10 of them, get me the money from there and put it for
06:45a camera here. It was every scene had something that I had to solve.
06:50Are you feeling a bit like, what is the word validate? There's a sense of validation for you?
06:5585% of all of our, of our acting pool because of advertising. So in advertising, whenever they have
07:04a big star, they call me. Why? Because obviously I know what I'm doing, but I have the ability to
07:11pull performances out of actors that and control them because some of these actors can be divas.
07:19But I managed to control them. So I know them all. So there's no new validation. But what the
07:24validation is, is that stars that I had, I don't even have their phone number. I don't know who
07:29they are. They're calling me and they're like, we'd love to collaborate. So yeah, that's good.
07:34Illegal immigration is an issue that touches everybody's lives. At any point, were you
07:39worried it would become a slightly didactic, like, you know, it's preachy, or it gets into that
07:44territory, you know, it has to entertain, movie has to entertain, but were you worried that it would just
07:50Yeah, no, I wanted it to move away from preaching. And because it's a true story, the true story is
07:59that these guys escaped.
08:02Where are they?
08:03You know, I'm not, I'm not writing that. If it were a fiction in my head, everybody would be
08:09like, oh, man, what are you saying? You know, you're trying to say that it's good to run away.
08:13No, it's the true story. Not mine.
08:16What do you want the message to be at the end of the day, just go enjoy the film? Omar, is
08:21there a do you have like a say, you know, if you see my movie, this is what I want you to take away
08:27from it.
08:28It will be a message to Egyptians, quite frankly, for an international audience that would be
08:34look at how clever we are
08:38as Egyptians. And to the Egyptian, it's watch out, the grass is not really greener on the other side,
08:47despite the story, but the grass isn't greener on the other side.
08:52I love that. I think somewhere along the way, you are a patriot.
08:56Absolutely. Absolutely. You have no idea how much I could live anywhere.
09:02And but I live here because I wanted this. This is what's happening now in a click of a finger,
09:10literally, is what I've always aimed for is I'm getting calls and messages from people
09:17from nationality, different nationalities. But a lot of Egyptians going, you've given me hope.
09:22You've given the cinema hope you're opening new roads.
09:26Now, I'm going to go back to pursuing this. This is exactly what I wanted that that Egypt
09:34gets back to its previous glory. Not that I'm the only one. Some there are individual
09:40cases that are making good movies, but they're very rare and far in between.
09:46But now you have this sort of formula that is it breaks all the rules and is a massive talk of
09:55of nations.
09:58Anything at all that you want people to know before they head to the cinemas,
10:02don't let language be a barrier as one. But other than that.
10:06No, I mean, if I've got something to tell viewers why they should go and see it,
10:12they should just go and see a film that is purely Egyptian and pure genius.
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