00:00This is Tim Wasper from FastTrack on SERP TV.
00:29I'm here in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia for the Red Sea International Film Festival.
00:33It's the same thing.
00:34Its identity is very Saudi, and yet it's very, very universal.
00:39But again, even to comment on that, I believe that we're similar.
00:43That's why we tell stories, right?
00:45We tell stories to just say, we're like you guys.
00:47We live similar lives.
00:49Feelings are feelings.
00:51Exactly.
00:52But that's the whole point of cinema.
00:53Yes, 100%.
00:54It brings bridges together.
00:56It builds bridges and it brings people together.
00:58It makes them feel like, yes, we do go into relationships, but this is how we do relationships.
01:04But eventually, at the core of it, we feel love.
01:07We feel despair.
01:09We feel all those feelings.
01:10And I feel like we travel a lot and we're very similar.
01:14Not that alienated.
01:16And I love that about films.
01:17I love showing that in films.
01:17And even if we don't travel a lot, we watch films nonstop.
01:20Like, one of my favorite romantic films, I think it's Hungarian.
01:24It's called On Body and Soul.
01:25Yeah.
01:25And, like, we watch so many content from all around the world that makes us feel like feelings are international.
01:34And if you want to, like, broaden your horizon, just watch films.
01:37Because you have that sense of humor, obviously, in you, to be able to write it.
01:51But then playing it, did you sort of go on to something that you really like?
01:55Yeah, eventually ended up not however you pictured her when she was.
01:58Yeah, she changed.
01:59Did you guys, did you workshop her?
02:01Yeah.
02:02Looks-wise, like, character-wise, no, it was always like this in my head.
02:08Okay.
02:09And a lot of people tell me, it's so similar to you.
02:12I'm like, I am so shy in comparison to her.
02:16I wish I am like her.
02:18But looks-wise, which Anas introduced, and I'm like, oh, I didn't know that.
02:21I thought she had red hair, but, like, she's not, she doesn't put makeup, and she doesn't, she's not stylish.
02:27I thought she's, like, depressed look.
02:30And he's like, no, she puts makeup, and she wears jewellery.
02:33And I'm like, oh, okay, I like that.
02:35I mean, she loves you.
02:36Was the red hair like that?
02:37The red was there from the get-go.
02:39Like, changing colors across, because I believe that she loves life.
02:42She does love life.
02:43She just thinks that she is, she's obsessing about something.
02:47And that's, like, that's part of the whole thematic thing of the movie.
02:49Like, the movie is about obsessing, and it's about when you obsess about something, you forget to live.
02:53Yeah.
02:54And life becomes just a backdrop for everything that you do.
02:57And I think that that is the representation of her.
03:00That's the representation of him.
03:01It's a movie about generational trauma, in a way.
03:04It's all symbolic, and it's all thematic.
03:06And this is something that I really love about the things we do, me and Sarah.
03:09Like, let's create a plot that people can laugh at and relate to.
03:13But, like, let's put something that we actually want to say, and just, like, put things within the lines, and put things within the whole story that actually makes this something that we want to see and something that we want to watch.
03:24It can move from high comedy to very specific, like, you dancing with the mother.
03:41Yeah.
03:41It's such a beautiful moment, but it comes after a little bit of slapstick.
03:45You talked about tone.
03:46I believe that, here's the thing.
03:49So, in my head, this is Hayat's story, right?
03:51Like, she is the protagonist.
03:53And I'd like to make people feel whatever the protagonist is feeling.
03:57And she's a person who's struggling with OCD.
04:00So, her brain thinks so fast with so many things.
04:03And she flips between so many emotions because she thinks that she will die.
04:08This is a person who's completely not thinking rationally when they act about things.
04:12And I wanted people to sort of...
04:14Which is nihilistic.
04:15She's not nihilistic.
04:16Like, 100%.
04:17As she would like.
04:19As she would think she is.
04:21Yeah, yeah.
04:21Exactly.
04:22And so, she's having a struggle of so many emotions.
04:26And I wanted people to sort of feel this craziness that's happening inside her.
04:30So, when love gets introduced and she starts to become calmer, people sort of feel that ease.
04:38So, I put you in a storm and then I'm like, okay, now you know how it feels.
04:42Now you will feel her when she starts falling in love.
04:45And it's something that I wanted audience to sort of feel.
04:47That's why I've always thought of it as a roller coaster of a tonality because that's how we live.
04:53I could be having a good moment with you and then I walk outside and someone do something shitty and I get angry.
04:58Right?
04:58Like, that's life.
04:59Life is not one stone.
05:00Exactly.
05:01So, I...
05:01So, one of the things that I love because she... I wanted living and life to be colorful.
05:19I wanted everything to be colorful and I wanted her to be gothic wearing black because I wanted to feel like a black stroke in a colorful painting.
05:27Exactly.
05:28I mean, I love black.
05:28Don't get me wrong.
05:29But, like, in the aesthetics of the movie.
05:31So, I wanted to push that even further and I wanted to say...
05:34So, emotions are colors, right?
05:36And if someone is wearing black, they think they're nihilistic but colors are sort of just clashing on them all the time.
05:42So, I wanted to reflect that.
05:43So, I did something where I assigned different colors for each emotion.
05:48So, Yusuf is blue all the way.
05:51She's orange all the way.
05:52When they love, that's magenta.
05:54And when they feel sorrow because their families love green, everything becomes green.
05:59So, the moon changes according to feelings.
06:01So, they could be having a bad moment in a green moon, walk into the next room where something romantic is going to happen and the color is certainly magenta.
06:09And the fountain.
06:09And the fountain as well.
06:11And it was all magenta.
06:12It was like, we painted Cornish magenta and that was magical.
06:16That was beautiful.
06:17So, like, we played a lot.
06:19Me and Sarah love to play a lot.
06:20It's a matter of this, let's make something different.
06:24Let's make something original, something that we would love to see, something that we would love to...
06:29I make movies for myself, right?
06:30I make movies that I want to watch and enjoy.
06:41I am going to see.
06:58Bye.
07:01Bye.
07:01Bye.
07:04Bye.
07:06Bye.
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