Hanan Abdalla
Hanan Abdalla makes her directorial debut with In The Shadow of a Man - which looks at women in post revolutionary Egypt.
The movie screened at the Bird Eye Film Festival in London last week and we were able to catch up with the director to chat about the movie, where the film started for her and the reaction to the film so far.
- In The Shadow of a Man is your new movie so can you tell me a bit about the film?
In The Shadow of a Man is in conversation with four women in Egypt and it is intimate conversations about love, marriage, sex and divorce and what it means to be a woman in Egypt in the wake of Egyptian revolution.
- So where did this movie start for you and what made you want to make a movie about women's needs in post revolution Egypt?
It was UN Woman commissioned so they wanted to film in the aftermath of the revolution that talked about women’s issues and women’s needs as they were the biggest face to be able to readdress this issues.
So it was actually their idea and their commission and I sort of took it on and tried to make something out of it.
- What was the major draw for you when they came to you with this idea for a film?
The draw was that it is an issue that is very sensitive and very delicate to be able to tackle without it being orientalist on the one hand and without acknowledging that there is a problem on the other.
At first I felt uncomfortable because everyone was becoming obsessed with the idea of talking about women in Egypt after the revolution particularly from the West so I didn’t want to feed that fetish but at the same time I felt that it was a film that was very important that we did need to talk about.
Although it was a big responsibility to come somewhere in the middle with it that was the challenge that I wanted to take
- The movie follows four different women who have different stories of their country, marriage, education so how did you go about getting these women on board?
I knew Wafaa and Badreya personally. The older woman Shahinda is a great woman and an activist and because my grandfather was an activist around the same time that she was she knew him and so there was a familiarity there.
A very good friend of mine met Suzanne and told me that she had broken off her engagement and we just clicked - she is a very warm person. So that is how I found them.
- You have slightly touched on my next question really I was wondering how keen they were to come forward and tell their story? And what kind of relationship did you build with these women during the filming process?
Apart from Shahinda, who immediately understood the importance of it, with Badreya and Suzanne it was a matter of saying ‘do you think that there is a problem? And they would say ‘yes’ and I would say ‘well do you think that it is important to talk about those problems?’ and they agreed and so I think that made them trust the process.
The two I knew very well I got to know more about them, which is very special. If you feel like you have known someone for a long time only to find out so much more about them.
Suzanne has become a very good friend of mine, she doesn’t live in Cairo so I don’t see her that often, but she is very brave, loyal and wonderful person. I feel very privileged that this film has given me the opportunity to have her as a friend in my life.
- What kind of movie did you want to make as you were setting out and how did the direction of the film change as you began to hear what they had to say?
The most important thing for me was that the film was enjoyable and it was one that people wanted to watch. I felt that the more personal that it was and the more story lead that it was and the more character lead it was the more people were going to care about the issues that came up in the film.
So the idea of being intimate was very important to me. I did try to talk about very theoretical things as I thought that that was the kind of information that UN women wanted but that gained no response. If I asked you now ’do you feel free?’ or ’what does freedom mean to you?’ you probably wouldn’t have anything to say - I don’t when I think about that question.
When you break it down into ‘tell me about when you went to school’ or ‘was there anything that you wanted to do that you didn’t do? Or ‘what did you want to do with your life?’ All of these things end up talking about the subtleties, the frustrations, the longings, the inconstancies and the inequalities that exist on those everyday levels.
- How were you ideas and beliefs challenged or changed as you made this film because you do have Egyptian heritage?
Both of my parents are Egyptian but I was born here in the UK and have lived my whole live here except for the revolution. Not much of it has been hugely challenged as opposed to slightly reframed.
I thought, slightly naively, that a lot of women don’t acknowledge that there is a problem and they think life is fine as it is - if they didn’t why don’t they just go out and protest about it or stand up against it?
But then I started to appreciate more that small acts of resistance do take place and they are as important; each one of these women are fighters and their stories are acts of resistance. And so that was something that I appreciated a lot more by making this film.
- How inspired were you by these women?
Very much so, and each in their own way as they are all very brave and very strong. In their lives most people will not have to deal with as much pain as Shahinda and to use that as ammunition to fight and live on and to use it as a battle is very courageous and strong thing.
Same with Badreya as it is not as simple for her to say ‘I am going to divorce my husband’ she does absolutely everything for her children and she thinks about them before anything else - that level of selflessness is not an easy thing to do. And then Wafaa to be selfish and say ‘this is not the life that I want to live, this is the life I want to live’ is an extremely difficult thing to do.
Suzanne is also incredibly brave; one for telling the story about her grandfather abusing her. But also to run away from home and then come back and challenge her family and say ‘this is what happened and from now on I make the decisions’.
She went out and she worked and she had her own shop and became financially independent and I don’t know anyone who has done that. All of them, in their own ways, are hugely inspirational.
- This movie really does take you into the lives of these women so what challenges did you face as you were making this film?
I had a lot of technical challenges as it was the first time that I had put all the courses that I had done into practice so there were lots of problems that I had to overcome.
But one of the biggest challenges was structuring the film dramatically; the way in which these women have nothing to do with each other and their stories aren’t relating to this big overarching thing that is happening. So we had to interweave these stories do they had their own dramatic arc but also spoke to each other and responded to each other.
- The film played at the Birds Eye View Festival in London over the weekend so how have you found the response to the movie here in the UK as well as overseas?
It has been a very interesting response here. What I think is great is that many people have said that it has challenged their perceptions of women in Egypt or in this part of the world.
Someone said to me that they felt quite privileged to have been able to talk… it was as if they were talking to these women that they have never been able to have access to. I think that that was what I was setting out to do and so that has been a great response.
In Egypt you have got a contrast of responses; on one hand you have people feeling this solidarity and saying ‘yes, I am glad that people are talking about this. And I am glad that this girl has come out and talked about this abuse story as I thought something that was normal and that I would have to live with.’
But on the other hand people are saying that this is an exaggerating and that we are giving Egypt a bad name. Both of those reactions are good as it doesn’t matter if the reaction is positive or negative as long as it provokes a debate between people. The worst thing is indifference.
- It has played at a string of festival as well as picking up some awards so how have you found your festival experience?
Completely surreal (laughs). It is a dream situation to have you first film premiere at Berlin and then play other festivals and win an award at Doha - I still don’t believe that it is real. It has been a very special year and a half to say the least.
I am leaning as I go along and I think though you make mistakes and it is painful to make mistakes as you are learning it is the best way to learn.
I feel very privileged and very humbled by the experience because it has been a big bout of luck but to have people support me the whole way I am very grateful.
- In The Shadow of a Man marks your directorial debut so how did you find being in the director's chair for the first time considering that this is such an important topic?
I have enjoyed it, I think. The create control that you have and the ability to collaborate with all those around you I have really enjoyed it.
I am glad that my role was to direct it as I think that it makes you push yourself a lot more in terms of the idea of the story, even ideologically and practically. I am glad that that was a challenge that I took on.
- Finally what is next for you?
I am currently in post production editing a second feature film that I am co-directing with my sister in law. It follows the moment in Egypt where everything could have changed - it has been our biggest turn point in these last two years.
It is the first elections since Mubarak’s fall and days before the election there were massacres on the streets by people who were running the elections; the army and the police.
And the film follows three women candidates; one Muslim Brotherhood, one liberal and one socialist as they begin their journey thinking they are going to be normal elections. Then this crisis happens.
They are at a fork in the road and follow them through the crucial decisions that they make about whether they are going to continue with the revolution or betray it and continue with the election. We are currently editing that I am about to go back to Egypt to, hopefully, finish that.
Doha Film Institute supported this year's Bird's Eye View Festival as part of Qatar-UK 2013 Year of Culture, a year long partnership promoting awareness and appreciation of culture, achievements, and heritage between the two countries.