Lebanese director Nadine Labaki, whose “Capernaum” is the highest-grossing Arabic and Middle Eastern film of all time with over $68 million worldwide, spoke about “how difficult it is” to make cinema in the Arab region. The director also discussed working with non-actors and dealing with Arab funders during an in-depth career talk at the Red Sea Film Festival, where she is a jury member.
Asked about dealing with Western partners and funds given the “Arab stereotypes” often perpetuated by Western media, the director said she never felt “pressured” by Western funds on how to portray her culture and stories on screen. “We are not at a stage where we can get funding from the countries where we live and work,” she said. “I received funding from the Western world because I couldn’t just have Lebanese funding. When I received this funding, including Western ones, I didn’t feel there was a specific pressure exercised on me […] I never felt I was faced with a specific agenda. I was pushed by my own obsessions even when I received Western funds.”
The “Back to Alexandria” actor also spoke about how she believes in the “important” role of cinema in “changing the way we look at specific issues.” “Cinema talks to us in an emotional frequency. When we embark on a new film, it can change the way we look at life. Every time I start writing a new film, I have this in the back of my mind.”
“We know how difficult it is to make cinema in our region,” she added. “There is a lot of pent-up anger and a lot of injustice. This is why we feel cinema could be one of the most important tools to help us express this pent-up anger. Cinema can put issues in the spotlight, and this is a major responsibility we carry. In a number of areas, only art can make a change.”
The director spoke at length about her Cannes-winning, Oscar-nominated “Capernaum.” In the 2018 drama, Labaki worked strictly with non-professional actors, led by a then 12-year-old Zain al-Rafeea, to tell the story of a Lebanese boy who sues his parents for the “crime” of bringing him into the world. “In ‘Capernaum,’ something very important happened,” she said. “I was able to have people embodying these roles that come from the exact same background in real life, and knew what it felt like. They knew that pain.”
“It was very difficult for me to ask a child to act out that pain, to experience and live it when they have not been living in that same situation,” she added. “This is why I chose to work with Zain. He was going through a very difficult time and started feeling like he was part of the movie, like his voice was the voice of all the children he had met in real life. When you’re trying to talk about such deep suffering, you can’t do the regular make-believe we do in cinema. The regular make-believe world can not be transposed into such stories when you’re talking about cruelty and pain.”
Working with an entire cast of non-professional actors meant adjusting the filmmaking process itself, with Labaki saying that “Capernaum” felt like the “complete opposite” of her previous experiences directing films. “When you are filming a movie, normally you have a sense of pausing life. You create an entire set with an entire decoration and artifacts, but in ‘Capernaum,’ it was the complete opposite. We were the ones who had to sneak into their world. We were the intruders coming from outside.”
“We wanted the actors to feel our presence as little as possible because it’s very stressful,” she went on. “You can’t ask a child to memorize and regurgitate written scripts, to look at the lights and be real and authentic. It’s incumbent on you to adapt to their personality and deal with whatever the child is giving you.”
As for what is next, Labaki said it is “very probable” that her next directorial effort “won’t be focused on Lebanon. “I will be filming in many other countries, not only in Lebanon and not just in the Arab region,” she added.
