00:00This is Tim Wasberg, I'm here in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia for the Red
00:29Sea International Film Festival, now relocated into the historic part of the city, Abba La.
00:37Everyone who came along the way, you know, including the last set of financing for the
00:42project is because they saw it and they saw the just the beautiful, not just the painting,
00:48and one thing that I really want to say about the film is I've watched a lot of silent black
00:53and white films and what I really love about this film is you don't even need the subtitles.
01:01No, I was thinking that you guys do that for sales and it's because you can actually just
01:07watch the complete silent film and get the film and I'm not saying this because I produced it,
01:13I'm saying this because last night I had people who come and see it for the first time and said to
01:18me they just forgot about the titles after a while and they were just watching, they just knew what
01:23was going on and they were gasping at one of them and I was like wow. See I was reading lips at
01:27certain points but the thing is like especially when you started crying at certain points where
01:32you would break down and you could just feel your heart like bleed onto the ground in black and white,
01:38does that make sense? Yeah, you feel a little better, you feel it more, yeah. How did you approach it?
01:43Were you very hands-on? Did you try to say okay be organic in the frame? What did you do?
01:49Well, with this kind of film you work with body language, okay, and I tried to break the barrier
01:58by making it fun, you know, show me how the character would walk, walk around the room, the gestures and
02:05all of that because you know there's no voice so so it's all down to body language and that's it's fun to
02:11embody somebody else. It's fun. So it wasn't toiling, I didn't toil with actors.
02:20Only some things where sometimes I would insist on a certain gesture. There's a scene, I'll never
02:26forget this, where when we first have our first room in the U.S. under the basement and we're so
02:33happy and the scene ends on her turning around and saying thank god. I told her you have to put your
02:40hand on your heart. I was like, no, I'm not feeling that. I don't want to put my hand on my heart.
02:46I said you have to put your hand on your heart.
02:50So things like that, you know, like insisting on certain gestures, you know. But otherwise I was
02:59lucky to have a very, a great group of actors and we also worked with the Roger Simon studio.
03:06that's a studio of actors in New York. We were trained there and we had a pool of actors to draw
03:13from. So a lot of the the small parts of the film are all Simon studio actors trained actors and they
03:20train on all sorts of stuff. They train in miming. They do classic theater, Shakespeare,
03:26film, the work. It's where the knowledge drops away because it's so vast and instinct takes over.
03:34Yes you do. That's my question. At what point does that happen or what point should that happen?
03:40I think what you want to do with any play as an actor or a director is to study before you get in
03:49front of the camera or on stage. Study, study, study, prepare, prepare, prepare, prepare,
03:55read that script, read it, get all those ideas together, come to the rehearsal or the shoot and
04:02then drop everything. Nice. Drop everything. Because it's still in the back of your mind.
04:08But you don't know what your co-star... Or if they took the time.
04:13Well you don't know... Some don't. And you don't know and you also don't know what they're going
04:19to give you because when you prepared it they weren't in that room with you. Now they are. And
04:24it's going to change everything and you've got to be willing to let that happen. Wow. And it's never
04:30going to change too much because you've got all that preparation there that you can go to. And the
04:36director has to be willing also to drop certain ideas when he sees them happening that aren't what he
04:42anticipated and to accept that to a certain extent. He's going to get credit if it works. It doesn't
04:50matter that it wasn't his idea. It'll become his idea if it works. We should definitely write a book
04:55about editing and acting and similarities and then... Really? Oh no, yeah. Well, well, this...
05:10I don't know.
05:14I don't know.
05:18ORGAN PLAYS
05:48Like actually it was me, it was like we want to put Omar and Sam in one room in a theater
06:05and with the support we got from like Picture Shop, like we were able to do it and just get it out.
06:11So I think, as you said, it's a labor of love for many, many, many years that has been translated right now.
06:20And usually you work for studios as well.
06:22I work for a big organized company that we work on episodic features.
06:26There is a tight timeline.
06:28So people think also about independent film that, oh, we don't want to get near or close in independent film
06:36because they are not finished.
06:38Imagine pitching it as a black and white film.
06:40Okay, yeah.
06:41So I don't...
06:42Silent.
06:42No one wants to get close from like studio side.
06:47Yeah, yeah.
06:47But I feel like here you got a very unique opportunity of like you have a finished product
06:53that's finished to the late, like the up standard.
06:56Yeah.
06:57It's like compared to anything that gets finished in the U.S. or Europe or anywhere globally.
07:03Yeah.
07:04And also the music is like it's...
07:07You can listen to the music on its own.
07:11We want to also bring the expertise or like, I mean, I mean, Egypt has a whole history of filmmaking
07:18and black and white film.
07:20So we want to just take our experience that we learned out there and just like bring it back home.
07:27So I think this film is like, for me, it was honestly an opportunity to just put something back home
07:35and just like show people how can a small team, when they have the right mentality,
07:41they can really put something together that's actually everyone will enjoy
07:46because people like go through like years of budgeting and raising money.
07:50And like, I mean, I don't know if you want to say how much it's...
07:53I think the beauty of just filmmaking and just the privilege of being a producer
08:00is being able to see the end, you know.
08:06And yeah, people might say, oh, you're delusional or whatever, but it's not that.
08:13It's more a matter of like how I want to see the end.
08:19So for me, like, I think that was what kept it going.
08:22This is what was a...
08:23You wouldn't know.
08:24This was a very small budgeted film, like around the 450K range.
08:30And it doesn't look like it.
08:33No, it doesn't.
08:34Right?
08:34But I feel like it's a testament to the journey of Abdul and Senea.
08:38They had very little to nothing to work with.
08:43And it's their journey that they've sort of like, like, bring something into fruition.
08:48And it's their journey that they've done.
09:18They've got to get it started.
09:47You've got to get to the end.
09:49Can you talk about knowledge versus instinct in that way for you?
09:52I mean, I also listened to Roger before I move on to this great question that you're saying.
09:56It is the best times is when I'm making the cuts and I'm like envisioning where I'm going
10:01and I'm making it and then a mistake happened.
10:04And now I'm not there, but then I'm watching and I realize the mistake has happened.
10:08And I'm like, oh, my God, this is great.
10:09Well, if I do that now, this became a mediocre idea that I was going to.
10:14And now I'm in this mistake that now is going to be my choice.
10:17Right?
10:17And that's very related to what Roger was saying.
10:19And I'm like moved by it.
10:21I will start answering your question about knowledge versus instinct.
10:24If you want to even go there, you don't have to.
10:26Oh, no, no.
10:27I'll go there.
10:27And I'll say like knowledge and instinct, right?
10:29Because even I'm like cheating from Roger here because that was a great answer is knowledge
10:34will inform your instincts, right?
10:36Your instincts change over time when now you know this part and this part.
10:40And then it becomes like part of your muscle.
10:43Weirdly enough, the same preparation that goes into playing a role goes into the edit.
10:47So now I, for example, I started on a feature documentary one time about the history of women's
10:56college basketball, WNBA.
10:59Interesting.
11:00And they knew that I had no previous experience with it, nothing.
11:03And I wasn't cutting on that when I was assisting my editor who also, she didn't know anything
11:08about WNBA.
11:08But their direction was, we are not cutting a sports documentary like flashy that we want
11:15story or want people.
11:16So they didn't care.
11:17They had amazing, amazing producers who knew about who were cutting like working with us
11:21on the topic that knew everything about it.
11:24So they didn't care about that.
11:26They wanted someone that could connect with the character and it was helping as they didn't
11:30know.
11:31Well, oh, that like 10 times, you know, when all the, you know, all, what do you call all
11:36star player, but they're not giving us anything for the story.
11:41So the editor wouldn't care because she doesn't know that.
11:43by the way, she didn't know how you were going to be able to make a song.
11:52So the YOUNG柄 as well...
12:22Either a play or you're working together on a film, those cultural differences might
12:32not totally disappear but all of a sudden we're just actors.
12:37There is the universal human thing of telling stories together and to me it's a way of bringing
12:46all kinds of people together when you're doing that.
12:50It transcends those, but it's the beauty of bringing different cultures together.
12:56Like this film, Egypt and America, that really makes this such a beautiful art form.
13:05Humanity is humanity no matter what country you're from and in a way we're all just people.
13:12And if we can forget those differences and just work together, that's the beauty of sports,
13:19that's the beauty of theater, that's the beauty of film, art, those are the things that really
13:24bring people together.
13:26Wow.
13:27For me it's even a different level of a full circle and I was just thinking about that
13:34the other day.
13:35I was born and raised in Egypt and had nothing to do with filmmaking or art in a way, in some
13:42perspective you can say that because my dad was art, music, film and he was a lawyer.
13:48Like he had nothing to do with that work.
13:49But he took you to movies.
13:50He took me to movies, we had the chest tapes and Egypt is not like, it was still the 90s,
13:56mid 90s, it was like a very famous thing to have and it cost money and you know all that.
14:01But he was very like sure to have that, in one way you could say I was exposed to art,
14:07but it had nothing to do with the industry as I got older and then I moved to the US in 2010
14:11and it started a long film school journey, career journey, all that and then I don't
14:17know what it is but I like to feel like I was just listening to Spike Lee today like that
14:21I'm very blessed to just come across amazing people and like Roger is definitely not far
14:26from that.
14:27And we, I just, I get lucky here and there and I work on a film like that and now I'm back
14:32at a festival right in the region that is made by an Arab country, that is a new festival
14:38that is stepping in very powerful steps.
14:41Yeah.
14:42And so like it just gave me emotional a little, like it's really crazy how life can work sometimes
14:46if you let go.
14:47Right?
14:48You let go of things.
14:49And you have to go with it.
14:50Be really loyal to the idea or the story or the feeling and just let it keep going and
14:55almost I say it and it feels cliche and I'm trying to like say like it really isn't,
15:01like it actually is all about that.
15:03But just do your first part which is the work.
15:06Yeah.
15:07And then the rest will happen.
15:08And it could take a while, it could be quick, you never know.
15:33Yeah.
15:34Yeah.
15:35Yeah.
15:36Yeah.
15:37Yeah.
15:38Yeah.
Comments