Award-winning Palestinian director seeks stories untold

AMMAN — Annemarie Jacir started her career writing and editing scripts, but cinema soon caught her interest and she started producing films that portray the stories untold — the human aspect of conflict.

Jacir’s film “Salt of this Sea” was screened in Amman last Wednesday as part of the Qalandiya International — This Sea is Mine Film Festival, which is under way in London, Beirut and Amman. 

“I was interested in cinema but didn’t know how to begin. I moved to Los Angeles and started working in jobs I could find — production assistant, all kinds of jobs in different fields of film-making until I decided what I wanted to do,” Jacir said at the screening. 

She started writing and editing scripts and the thought of directing films occurred to her at a later stage, said Jacir, who has been in the film industry for around 20 years.

Her interest in directing was unleashed at film school, where she pursued graduate studies in cinema, the Palestinian — American said. 

“Even before film school, I was shooting my own films, experimental documentaries, and then I moved into fiction eventually and stayed there,” she added.

The themes she tries to tackle in her works, she said, are human-related, personal stories. “I’m interested in small moments between people.”

“Themes in my works usually have to do with… some kind of personal, inner struggle, people who struggle with something.”

Being a Palestinian, she tries to focus on stories from Palestine, Iraq and Syria, shining the light on the “underdog” — the side of the story that people do not often hear.

“I’m interested in those stories, I think I’m drawn to [them], to see what is between the lines, what we’re not shown, not the black and the white, but the grey area,” the director told The Jordan Times.

“Salt of this Sea”, produced in 2008, was Jacir’s first feature film and was an Official Selection at Cannes International Film Festival.

Her second feature film “When I Saw You”, a 2012 Jordanian-Palestinian production, won Best Asian Film at the Berlin International Film Festival, Best Arab Film in Abu Dhabi and was Palestine’s 2013 Oscar entry.

Earlier, Jacir’s short film “Like Twenty Impossibles” had been accepted as an Official Selection at the Cannes festival of 2003, but she said the experience of 2008 was more memorable, as it coincided with Nakba Day, when Israel was created on Palestinian land and Palestinians were forced to leave their homes.

“It was the remembrance of 60 years of Nakba, so it was emotional to be there representing Palestine at that point; recognition was really nice since the film was almost impossible to make,” she added.

“Salt of this Sea” narrates the story of a Palestinian-American who heads to Palestine on a mission to discover her country and reclaim her family’s house and money taken during the 1948 war. 

The film stars Palestinian poet Suheir Hammad as Soraya and actor Saleh Bakri as Emad.

“It’s just one Palestinian story from millions of stories; it’s a love story more than anything, about two people who could be together under normal circumstances, but because of the political situation, they can’t, and in the end they’re torn apart from each other,” the director said. 

Jacir said the most difficult part of her journey as a director is finding the finance to make films. “Film is expensive… You have a crew of 30 people, it becomes difficult.”

“Every film is different, every film feels like a miracle. My favourite part is the production. All these people come together, the whole team comes together, some are more experienced than others, and everybody puts their heart into it,” Jacir said.