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Lessons for Zafirah

The questions were posed by our French distributor La Famille Digitale. You are free to publish extracts from the text as you wish, but please credit the source.

LA FAMILLE DIGITALE: THE COLOUR OF OLIVES - QUESTIONS AND ASNSWERS

What motivated you to make this film?
Carolina: In a documentary film I do not recall the name of, I once saw an image of Palestinian children crossing the West Bank Wall to get to school. I saw the film in 2003, remembered this image, and felt the need to express something about the situation. I wanted to give children the opportunity to talk in their own words about what they felt-not filtered through adults' and politicians' perceptions. In early 2004 I was lucky enough to win a cash prize for my previous film, "Zona Cero", and I used this money to get to the West Bank and start my research.Daoud: I felt passionately about the plight of the Palestinians for many years. In 2004 I decided to go to the West Bank to interview contemporary artists about their work. I was not thinking about a film, rather about writing a book-a follow-up to a book I authored of political art from the Bosnian War ("Evil Doesn't Live Here"). While in Palestine I met Carolina Rivas, who was investigating the film she wanted to make. We started working together when we got back to Mexico. We applied for funding for a documentary film but did not get any from anywhere, so I decided to produce the film myself. The Colour of Olives is the first film I produced or photographed, as essentially I am and was for many years a documentary film editor.

How did you meet the Amer family? How did they agree to be filmed? How long after meeting them did you suggest filming them?
Carolina and I went back to the West Bank together in November 2004. We were doing some research in a town called Qalqiliya-a town cut off by the Wall. We were there for about ten days, and for various reasons we were having a lot of trouble identifying a solid subject for the film. One day in the Zoological Gardens that feature in The Colour of Olives-where, thanks to the Qalqiliya Municipal Council, we lived in a guesthouse-we met a man who was the cousin of Monira, the mother in our film. He told us the story of the Amer family and encouraged us to visit the Amer family to observe their situation for ourselves. A few days later we went to Masha. Monira's cousin introduced us to the Mayor of the village-Anwar Amer-and as it turned out he was also related to Monira; he is Monira's brother. Anwar spoke good English and we were able to fluently communicate with him; he understood completely the film we wished to make and was hugely helpful and hospitable to us. It was Anwar Amer who finally took us to meet the Amer family. Hani was not there when we arrived-he was on his arable land. Monira was very enthusiastic, but said we need talk to her husband. When Hani returned he asked Carolina a series of very direct questions: how would we film so as not to put the family at risk; where we planned to show the film; what was our purpose in making it, etcetera. When we first met the Amers we explained that we were interested in making a film; there was no other pretext for our visit. And right from the start-and with an extraordinary level of trust-they accepted our idea and us. The family was very keen to express themselves regarding the Wall and their lives; we did not have to work very hard to persuade them to take part in the film. Also, we were absolutely clear with them about the type of commitment we would need and the type of in-depth subject matter we wanted to film; we stressed that we were not journalists and that the filming was not going to be quick or easy. We also made a specific point of asking the children if any of them objected, and none of them did-or at least they did not say they did. It all happened very quickly: there were no more than three or four days between our first meeting the family and the first day of filming. Ironically, the first shot we filmed-to introduce the family to the camera's presence in their house-the family seated together on the sofa-eventually became the last shot of the film.

The form of the film is special (inter-titles, little dialogue). Why and how (at the moment of writing, shooting or editing) did you choose this form?
The precise formal decisions were all made in the edit. We conducted on-camera interviews with the whole family, and we actually have about five hours of such material with them. In all we shot around 50 hours of material with the Amers-as well as another five or six hours in the wider community, principally in the schools-so we had a lot of options in the edit.Carolina and I have an aversion to on-screen interviews. But it was Carolina who first suggested that we just forget about using the interviews to camera. After all, most people do not sit in front of cameras and talk about themselves; they live their lives and problems; they do things; life is largely action-based. The interview has become such a stale documentary cliché, we believe, and ordinary people almost never come out looking or sounding like themselves. We wanted to be truthful and we also had a lot we wanted to show, not discuss. Also, as Carolina has stated, through the film she wanted to give the Word an almost sacred quality. For us the inter-titles are like little poems. But all this was not immediately obvious; we tried various structures before we found this inter-title form. Once we found the form we felt that the inter-titles gave the film a kind of stillness, a kind of meditative quality. The viewer has to concentrate quite hard, but if he/she reads the texts carefully he/she enters each character profoundly.Also, from a practical point of view, doing the interviews with the children was quite challenging. All the children were very natural just "being" in front of the camera, but during the interviews they became quite shy. Children in patriarchal societies such as Palestine are not used to talking about themselves in the very public way that the camera demands. Moreover, at first Hani did not want us to talk with the children in depth; he even tried to forbid us to talk to them in private. Carolina argued with him on this point and he eventually relented and even encouraged us to talk to them. But the interviews we conducted with the children early on in the shoot did not work out well at all. And so we delayed the second interviews with them until the very end of the shooting period, so as to give them the longest possible time to get to know us and feel more comfortable-but even then the children were never really at ease speaking about themselves. Word-for word they said all the things we eventually quoted on-screen, but in very little, quite introverted voices. Putting the children on-screen in this way would have severely misrepresented them, and would have made the film very uneven in tone. All these aspects of the material, as well as our personal aesthetic and ideological tastes, influenced the final form of the film. The decision was not an easy "arty" solution, as a few critics have suggested. In fact I can definitely say that using inter-titles in this way is a challenging option in all kinds of ways. We found the day-by-day structure very suitable, as it let us repeat the same events many times-and through this repetition to emphasise the almost-painful passing of time. Also, we thought, the idea of one week-from Saturday through to the following weekend-is universal and so easy for viewers everywhere to empathise with. We also realised that we had eight protagonists, and eight days, and there is something satisfying in this numeric synchronicity.

How did you organise the shoot? Were you in the family's house day and night, etc.?
Generally we were in the house from about 6 a.m. through to sunset, or until we felt that the family was tired and needed some space and rest. We ate with the family almost daily, though, and in this way really became a part of the family. We slept in the house on only two nights, however-principally because there were scenes we wanted to film very late at night or early the next morning.

Do you speak Arabic or did you have an interpreter?
Neither of us speaks Arabic. We were extremely fortunate to find a Spanish/Arabic translator: Miriam Dalu, a young Palestinian woman who grew up in Venezuela and had recently returned to live in another village a few kilometres from Masha. Miriam was really talented: simultaneously she could write fluent Spanish while listening to Arabic dialogue. Carolina sat next to Miriam during the interviews and read the Spanish while the interviewee spoke their answers. In this way the on-camera interviews with Monira and Hani were very dynamic and we really got to know them fast. We interviewed the parents right at the beginning of the shoot and many of their answers gave us ideas for scenes we decided to shoot. Anyway, we never felt that language difference was a barrier to our integrating with the family. When we left Hani said we were their new "family in Mexico", and we feel the same about them in Palestine.

How did you by-pass the ban on filming?
We just ignored it. We hid the camera behind various objects outside the house when we had to film the gates being opened and closed, etcetera. And if possible we stayed inside the house when Israeli soldiers were passing by. The "Humvee" military vehicles they drive make a lot of noise, and in this way we had a minute-or-so's warning as to when they were approaching. Only on a couple of occasions did the soldiers catch us in the open, and one of these events is included in the film.Our main fear was getting all our video material out of Israel. Going through Tel Aviv airport is a truly horrible experience at the best of times (especially if you have a Muslim name like "Daoud" Sarhandi). We had a few problems there, but the security guards are more interested in bombs than visual information and for all their paranoia are really quite naïve. And so after a lot of hassle and interminable questions-and the very helpful intervention of the British Consulate in Israel and British Airways-we were allowed to board our flight to London with all our material.

What were the shooting conditions (technical and financial resources)
Technically we had very little equipment: a very cheap and bad tripod that I had to repair every day with sticky tape; a forty-year-old Sennheiser microphone, with its ancient foam wind shield; some radio microphones, which ate batteries that were very hard to buy in Palestine; and a new and very good Panasonic DVX100 mini-DV camera (I shot the film at 24 frames per second with a "cinelike" gamma). That was our whole kit. A lot of people comment about the nice use of natural light. And it is nice, but I really did not have any options since we had absolutely no lights with us.Apart from a few small cash donations from friends and relatives, we paid for every cent of the film ourselves. The whole film-from research through to distribution-has cost around 25,000 Euros to date. We did get some help in Mexico from various companies and educational institutes, however-which did things for us very cheaply or even free.

How long was the shooting period?
Exactly twenty-one days.

How long was the editing period?
It took about four months for the picture editing and about three months for the sound editing. Another three months, part-time, was spent doing the online. It's difficult to say in terms of pure days and weeks, though, since the whole postproduction took us from the beginning of 2005 through to the premier in February 2006. We could have done it faster, perhaps, but we also had cash problems and were simultaneously learning a great deal about digital technology and programmes, which were quite new to both of us.

Was the film shown in Palestine? What were the reactions?
The film has been distributed in 45 school cinema clubs, as part of a European Union funded project administered by the Qattan Foundation in London and Ramallah. Although we have not had the ability to get back to Palestine since we left with the footage in December 2004, every Palestinian who has seen the film-at least every one I have met or spoken to-is very impressed with it. A lot of Palestinians came to the two screenings we had at the Dubai International Film Festival; I was there and spoke with them, and they really appreciated the film.Writing about Palestine it's also worth mentioning that the film has been selected to be screened at the 2007 Jerusalem International Film Festival in June. Furthermore, it was the only film screened at a special event held at the United Nations in New York City in November 2006, entitled "United Nations International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People". We hope that in these ways the film helps contribute to a more balanced regional and international debate-one that encompasses people, and not just political ideologies and slogans.

Did you show it to the Amer family?
Yes, but we have not been able to discuss it with them in detail. Hani told us on the telephone that he likes the film, however. Also, the film has been translated into Arabic, and the Amer family has watched the Arabic version-so we know they precisely understand how we interpreted them and their reality.

How did you work together, Carolina and Daoud? Is this film your first collaboration?
This film was our first collaboration. Our working relationship is one of complete creative affinity-during the planning, shooting and editing. Each one of us has ideas and there is a great deal of give and take. Neither of us tells the other what to do or how to think, but very often we just have the same creative impulse. During the shooting we would decide together what to film, or one or other of us would suggest or reject an idea. If the scene was more of a dramatic re-enactment Carolina would direct the camera and instruct the family as to what to do, and then they would interpret the scene themselves: simple things, such as Monira making bread or looking out of the window; Hani looking over the Wall; etcetera. Some of the scenes were more "documentary" and so often I worked more independently: in the school classrooms, for example. But having written this it is not so easy to definitively separate our inputs; our working style was much more fluid than this sounds. For example, during the bread-making scene (when children throw stones at the house) there are two shots of Monira's tense hands. Monira was recreating the situation for the camera, and she really got emotionally involved in what she was representing. Outside the viewfinder I saw her white knuckles on the plastic bowl and quickly shot them. This was not strictly speaking "directed", but came out of the re-enactment as a purely documentary image, you could say. Often, too, Carolina relied on me to shoot a scene, but would whisper ideas and other shots she wanted or observed, and I would shoot them when I got a chance. We worked like this in the scene when Hani and Monira wait in the house for the guards (the first Sunday).Every night we would review the rushes and decide the next day's shoot or whether something needed re-shooting. As the end of the shoot got closer we made a big list of all the things we had on tape and all the things we still needed to shoot-from whole scenes through to pickup shots. We put this list up on the wall where we lived. We felt that the risk to the family was growing with each day we spent there; also, the weather was getting very cold and we knew we had to leave before the end of the year. So we worked very quickly and efficiently trying to complete all the things on our list. We left Palestine feeling that there was nothing left to shoot, although we still did not know exactly what the film we had was.Regarding the editing: at first I cut a lot of scenes more or less independently. As soon as we had a first assembly of the film we worked together closely: re-editing, finding the overall structure, deciding the quotes, etcetera. Getting the balance right between the quotes and the action was very challenging. The final rhythm of this film was also quite tricky to perfect and I worked hard on the fine cut to express the sense of not much happening, but something earth-shattering taking place at the same time.
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