This is definitely a film you won’t want to miss. And read on for a personal interview with the Syrian filmmaker to find out why.
When I first watched Nezouh in Venice in 2022, I discovered a masterpiece of magical realism that took my breath away. Unlike American filmmakers or helmers from Western Europe, Soudade Kaadan doesn’t have the luxury of shooting her films in her own country. In fact, the French-born Syrian filmmaker confirms that since she left her hometown of Damascus in 2013 to move to Beirut, she never went “back to Damascus — and now I can’t go back anyway.”
But within the story of Nezouh, the central character is a house in Damascus, which makes the above statement so spine-chilling. The house, the unmistakably Damascene look and feel of it, are all courtesy of a location in Gaziantep, Turkiye and a Turkish art director, “an amazing production designer whose name is Osman Özcan,” as Kaadan tells me. While the filmmaker is based in London these days, she and I met in Venice, on the eve of Nezouh’s well deserved Armani Beauty Audience Award win. When the audience votes for a film, critics and distributors better listen! And kudos to the UK’s Modern Films for doing so, as they are distributing Nezouh in London and around the UK. Other films recently distributed by the company include the Oscar-nominated Four Daughters by Kaouther Ben Hania and Malaysian filmmaker Amanda Nell Eu’s Tiger Stripes.
For Kaadan, this wasn’t her first Venice win, nor her only award. Just to mention a couple, in 2018 she won the Lion of the Future for Best Debut Film in Venice for The Day I Lost My Shadow, while her recent short film, Aziza, also won the Sundance Grand Jury prize in 2019.
Nezouh tells the story of a family, 14-year old Zeina and her parents Hala and Mutaz, as the world around them begins to implode. Literally. Mutaz, played by the wondrous Syrian superstar Samer al Masri in a lovely nuanced performance, wants to stay, at every turn he thanks God for allowing them to have a home, and when all the windows — and part of the roof — are blown out by a rocket attack, he doesn’t seem to want to budge. Why become displaced in another country, when they can be unsettled in their own.
But Hala, the popular Cairo-based Syrian actress Kinda Alloush who doesn’t mind playing down her beauty in Nezouh, wants to go. She sees no reason for her and daughter Zeina (newcomer Hala Zein in a stunning performance) to stay among the ruins of Damascus. Yet Zeina has found at least one reason to stay put, a cute neighbor named Amer, played by the multicultural — and future star mark my words! — Nizar Alani. To say that Alani and Zein make a cute couple would be the understatement of the year.
As we often think of the arrival of refugees on the shores of European countries and North America, I ask Kaadan what inspired this story of those who wish to remain. “I started writing the script in 2013, after I left Damascus and was in Beirut — I chose Beirut because it’s not so far from Damascus, two hours by car,” she says, continuing, “I felt like I was still there, but you’re not anymore. And even if it’s two hours by car, since then I never came back to Damascus.” She calls the closeness an illusion and her statement reminds me of something Matteo Garrone said during an interview we had in Marrakech, about refugees of war and how they always move to a nearby country, in the hope of going back. Even if history has proven most of them wrong.
Kaadan continues, explaining “I wanted also to show how difficult it is, the decision to leave.” She reminds me that “at the beginning of 2012,” soon after the Arab Spring uprisings started, “people were saying, ‘we welcome refugees’ and people were very generous. But that lasted one year, till 2013 and then it was too much and people started to complain. And countries started to close the borders. And don’t forget that now this has lasted ten years!” She delves deeper and admits “I understand that people felt it’s a burden but they also forgot why people were leaving — as if it is a choice! A luxury choice.” In the end, Kaadan “wanted to show how difficult it is to make this decision to leave and to become somehow non-citizens and turn into a stereotype as a person.”
This stereotype often includes poor Syrian families, the wife typically wearing a hijab (a head covering) and carrying half a dozen children. But what is wondrous about Kaadan’s work is that nothing is a cliche! At every turn, the spectator is met with decisions and images that disprove the typical film we expect from women filmmakers from the Arab world. Maybe because Kaadan’s own inspirations burrow deep into the history of modern cinema. “I’m someone who can watch a film per day when I’m not shooting,” the thoughtful filmmaker admits. “My inspiration was early Italian cinema after the war. When you see the reality, the destroyed city and at the same time people are trying to find dignity and to live — like in Vittorio De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief.” Bingo! I knew that I could see shades of the Italian filmmaker’s fantastical Miracle in Milan shining through the stunning Nezouh. “That’s a very simple story of a father and a son and the son becoming a father suddenly,” Kaadan continues about De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief which proved an inspiration, “and in this film you see also the roles changing. And this father who is trying to be a father is not succeeding.” One of the most touching moments in Nezouh is its ending and I won’t spoil it for you. But let’s just say that it restored my trust in men — and humanity. And made Kaadan a cinema heroine for me.
Filmmaker Soudade Kaadan
Upon hearing Kaadan speak, during a recent breakfast organized by Modern Films along with the BFI and Film4 which supported the film from its inception, I also realized that Nezouh is a feminist anthem. Mother and daughter here, Arab Syrian women, lead the way, both for the audience and the men in their lives. It’s a groundbreaking idea and one that was, understandably, rejected by a lot of male critics of Arab cinema in Venice, who dismissed the story and its filmmaker. But as Kaadan points out, wars and revolutions often lead to women’s emancipation, as it has been, famously, in my native Italy after WWII. Incidentally, it’s the starting point behind another great woman’s film which has opened in the UK this year.
I want to ask Kaadan about the look of her film, which she achieved without the luxury of shooting in Damascus. “We had to recreate everything from zero — and that’s why it is a huge work, even if you can’t tell,” as she confirms. With Özcan, she had “a specific image of what I wanted. I’m very detailed as a director and he’s amazing also for understanding that. Every sheet was important for me — the color in every room, what is on it, how is it detailed…” You also pay more attention, she continues, when “you recreate from zero — I don’t have the luxury as any filmmaker to film in my own country. And there they have a base almost 60 percent there and they add touches.” Yet, without the extra help, the result is still a film that is as luscious to watch as it is funny, poignant and deeply touching. She shares French DoP Helene Louvart with Alice Rohrwacher (La Chimera, Happy as Lazzaro), Karim Ainouz (Firebrand, and the upcoming Motel Destino) and Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Lost Daughter). Louvart shares the cinematography credits on Nezouh with Turkish actor and DoP Burak Kanbir.
To achieve the look, “we built it from zero so it would look like a Damascene house, because Turkish houses are completely different. We put everything in the house ourselves — the tiles, the windows. It was like building a new house where you only have the foundations,” Kaadan confesses. But the work wasn’t done yet, as Kaadan wanted safety to come first, even at a lower budget. “We went to an empty building and he recreated the house, and because I wanted safety for my kids — I’m a woman director and that’s important for me — I didn’t want them to film on the roof where something would happen. So we recreated the same roof on a first floor building. Exactly the same. All the roof moments are shot in a completely different location.” She jokes, “we had an independent film budget and everyone is asking me how we did it.” Magic, one would dare say.
Kaadan did have co-financing through the BFI, which awarded National Lottery funding and Film4, as well as France’s Agat Films & Cie and Berkeley Media Group, along with Kaadan’s own KAF Production who were all producers/co-producers on the project. MK2 Films boarded in 2022 to secure sales and distribution for Nezouh.
So how did Kaadan find her cinematic light at the end of the tunnel of displacement, and more importantly, how did she manage to turn the story she wrote for Nezouh into a positive one? “At first moment, you are in shock. It was darkness and trauma that I was living and then, you suddenly start to see the light,” she explains, continuing “that’s why I chose the title ‘Nezouh’ — displacement of people and light and water — because suddenly you see a light coming through your life and feel the change coming. And you see what is happening, and it’s like when it snows and there is one flower coming through the snow and suddenly you cherish that.”
To read my full review from Venice 2022, click here.
Nezouh opens at the ICA on May 3rd — to book your tickets click here. For other locations and tickets, check out the Modern Films website.
Top image courtesy of Modern Films, used with permission.