A few questions for…

 

Raja Amari,

the young Tunisian director who crosses the boundaries of the traditional Arab world with her pictures, and has brought her feature film Dowaha (Buried Secrets) to Art Film Fest.

In the past you’ve worked as a film critic and now you make films yourself. How is this reflected in your critical eye?

My experience as a critic was short, and I stopped because I realized how hard it is to make a film. I wanted to actually shoot a film, and this was the way to get closer to cinemas, see films and learn from them.

The fiction film Satin Rouge was your feature debut, and it looks at the love of dance. Did you share this love?

I do love dancing. I even attended dance school for several years. And the second thing is that dance is very intimately connected with Arab film culture, where the majority of films are classified as musical comedies and dance is at the centre of everything. I longed to connect to the tradition of Arab films and I saw that as a must. On the other hand I wanted to maintain a bit of distance from this tradition. For me it was important to introduce the dancers' real characters and viewpoints. In the tradition of Arab film, the female dancer has always been an object, and not a real character who feels, has her own free will and can influence the plot.   

Do you feel free as a woman?

Yes, completely. People always ask me if it’s complicated for me to make films as a woman in the Arab world, but it doesn’t give me any problems. My problems are the same ones that male filmmakers have – raising money. Perhaps it’s actually easier sometimes when people exclaim how hard women have it, and we get more interest and support. But what has happened to me, for example, is that people in Tunisia and the Arab world haven’t liked how I portray bodies and desires. I think they’d be more likely to accept it from a man rather than a woman.

Art Film Fest will screen your film Dowaha. What was it inspired by?

I actually don’t quite know. I began writing the story with the main character, and I watched her develop; so in fact it was she who created the plot. It isn’t an autobiography, it isn't anything that has happened somewhere; but of course there are certain characters and various situations that I’ve experienced.

When you write a screenplay, do you know in advance how it will end?

Absolutely not. It’s very open. The story for Dowaha took me one year to complete. First I wrote the story by myself, and then I collaborated with two other screenwriters, given that the film was a co-production. So I worked with one from France and another from Switzerland. I liked how they wrote. They helped me to create a different version of the screenplay.

Michal Liba