Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Interview: ROQIA [Red Sea International Film Festival 2025 - Jeddah, Saudi Arabia] - Part I

2 days ago

Writer/Director Yanis Koussim & Actor Ali Namous talk to Fest Track about concept, characterization and memory in regards to their horror/thriller film: "Roqia" playing in the Red Sea Competition section at the 2025 Red Sea International Film Festival in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Transcript

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.

00:33You know, obviously using genre to talk about different things, you know, about society,

00:39about, you know, war, all these things, obviously the Algerians, could you talk about looking

00:46at the idea of possession as a theme?

00:50For me, I think like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, that human beings come in this world pure

01:00and it's the society which pervert it, you know.

01:04I don't know if it's a good translation in English, but

01:07This is Jean-Jacques Rousseau's quote.

01:12And for me, it's the same for the possession.

01:16When a human born, he born good and pure and no one born with evil inside him.

01:29The evil possessed you in a moment or other during your life.

01:34And this is the thing for me about Alokia.

01:41And what was amazing is it was written like this since all the versions of the draft of

01:50the script, it was like this.

01:52All the cuts of the editing was like this.

01:58But I discovered when I saw the last, the final copy of the movie that I started the story

02:04with a shot of the most heavily state of human.

02:11And I finish it with the most pure state of human.

02:17Yeah, without spoiling, but you understand what I mean?

02:19Yeah, and it was like, wow, I really discovered it at the end, but it was present since the

02:26beginning.

02:27I can show you all the draft.

02:29But when I saw it in the big screen, I said, yeah, this is my film, what it's about, you

02:36know, how you can start your life as the light shot, the last shot to become the first shot,

02:47you know, and all the film is this, I think, between the two shots, this is the process.

02:53It's about how we can look at ourselves as humanity.

03:17How we can learn, I mean, your character, specifically, because of his amnesia, you know, who am I supposed

03:24to be?

03:25It's about this nature of existence.

03:27Yes.

03:27You know, but you can't play it like that.

03:29You have to play it like a man who's lost trying to find who he is.

03:33The most beautiful idea of the movie was that the evil human do is not human, and it comes

03:46from, comes certainly from the outside.

03:48We can't be that bad.

03:50So, so it's, it's a, it's a evil spirit.

03:54Um, uh, I like the idea in the movie that when we lose memory, once we lose memory, once

04:03we forget, then history, history repeats itself.

04:08When we forget, once we forget the violence, once we forget, uh, what we have done to other

04:16people, violence will come again.

04:19This is the, the, the biggest metaphor of the, of the, the character for me.

04:24Allah wa kabbalah.

04:26Bismillah.

04:26Allah wa kabbalah.

04:27Bismillah.

04:28Bismillah.

04:29Allah wa kabbalah.

04:30Bismillah.

04:30Allah wa kabbalah.

04:31Allah wa kabbalah.

04:32I'll tell you this, he, he didn't know, I, uh, uh, me as, uh, as Ali, I

04:46lost memory.

04:47Yeah.

04:48And he didn't know before.

04:49Yeah.

04:50I didn't know.

04:50And he told me after, yeah.

04:52I lost memory.

04:53The first thing, one of the first thing, uh, things I searched for is, was I a good man?

05:00I lost memory, uh, for, uh, of, uh, two past years.

05:05One of the, the, the, the first things I searched was I a good man when I met people

05:09that I knew during this two years, but I don't know now.

05:13So, uh, was I good to them?

05:16Yeah.

05:17So, it, um, it resonated with me, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, later with the, uh, it resonated

05:24with me later with the character, uh, that he is searching if he is a good man and he

05:31is searching what he wants to, to become from now on.

05:36Uh, it's, uh, it's, uh, it's this choice, this, the difficulty to, to, uh, go to an unknown

05:42road from now on, uh, that was interesting to play.

05:47And I think, uh, uh, uh, the story was very beautifully written.

05:51Yeah.

05:52And that's why he said in the moment that, uh, it's perhaps not a good idea if I recover

05:58my memory.

05:59Yes.

06:00You know, this conversation, uh, to the war in the world.

06:01Yeah.

06:02What in the world.

Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Interview: ROQIA [Red Sea International Film Festival 2025 - Jeddah, Saudi Arabia] - Part I

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