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LIMITE BLOG POSTS
Minnie’s Pick: LIFE OF BRIAN (Christmas)
Dir. Terry Jones
1979
Brian, a nobody born on the same day as and next door to
Jesus Christ, is constantly mistaken for the Messiah. This
religious and political satire is one of Monty Python’s best at
work, mocking faith-blindness with tons of gags on mistaken
identity, cross dressing, wordplay, and a lot of randomness. Its
absurdist humor will play well for those seeking an alternative
holiday treat.
http://limitemagazine.com/2013/11/2013-holiday-
film-staff-picks/
September 24, 2013
Film Review: Generation Iron
by Minnie Li
Bodybuilding is an intensely competitive niche that most of us
know little about, and is for that very reason
intriguing. Generation Iron takes us behind the curtain. Vlad
Yudin, a Russian director known for Big Pun: The
Legacy (2008) and The Last Day of Summer (2009), takes on
this much-hyped sequel to Pumping Iron (1977), the movie
that launched Arnold Schwarzenegger’s career. The film
follows seven professional bodybuilders vying for the 2012
Mr. Olympia title in Las Vegas.
There is an artistry to all high-level athleticism,
and Generation Iron conveys it through scenes of bodies
dripping in sweat, locked in painful and tedious regimented
gym workouts. The result, though of course a little grotesque,
has its own beauty. As the bodybuilders succeed in sculpting
their bodies into an imagined form of masculine perfection,
they transcend their sport into a sort of art exhibition reveal in
their poses that are captured by the camera in fleeting
moments, for example, as a performance piece around New
York City (by Kai Greene) and on stage during preliminary
competitions, as well as at the Mr. Olympia contest.
Yudin, like his subjects, is meticulous and methodical, which
has its problems; there are moments that would have benefited
had they been allowed to breathe and play out organically.
And Mickey Rourke’s narration is uncharacteristically
distracting for the same reason, as—just like the film’s
docudrama approach—it generates unnecessary dramatization.
Like a reality television show, the bodybuilders sometimes
become mere characters, stripped of the agency of
documentary subjects.
Thus, the film falls short. Though it gives exhaustive details of
these men’s bodybuilding, it offers only a few brief glimpses
into their lives as men. There are simply too many subjects to
follow, and the film leaves little room for the audience to
connect with the subjects personally. It also gets tedious as the
subjects say more or less the same thing about their discipline.
While informative, it is not immersive. In the end, the film
satisfies our curiosity about bodybuilding without telling us
much about who the bodybuilders are as people.
Limité Rating: 3/5
Director: Vlad Yudin
Screenwriter: Vlad Yudin
Cast: Mickey Rourke (narration), Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Lou Ferrigno, Busta Rhymes
Distributor: The Vladar Company
Site: generation-iron.com
TRT: 106 min.
Release: Currently in theatres

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September 30, 2013
Q&A: Néjib Belkadhi, Director of
BASTARDO
by Minnie Li
Tunisian Filmmaker Néjib Belkadhi’s feature narrative debut,
Bastardo, is a story about power, order, and capitalism gone
awry. It follows Moshen, an orphan found near a dumpster.
Despite being ridiculed by his neighbors who call him
“Bastardo,” Moshen’s fate seems to turn around when he
blindly agrees to have a cell antenna installed on his rooftop.
Money starts flowing in; the residents are thrilled with the
convenience of cell phones. But mobster Larnouba isn’t happy
with the change. Wealth makes Moshen a powerful and
respected man. But, unbeknownst to him, it also turns him into
a ruthless man.
I had the recent opportunity to interview Belkadhi about his
new film, which premiered at this year’s Toronto International
Film Festival. Note that the following interview contains
spoilers.
You have created two really interesting, contrasting
worlds: the grubby-looking district and the sterile retail
shops; even the cell phone shop Moshen builds inside the
district appears squeaky clean. Can you talk about how
these two universes are brought on screen and their
significance to the narrative?
That was one of the big questions before we began shooting—
like, how to film the city, how to film the district, which for
me it’s a totally different universe—knowing that [in] the
district there will be no law, no police, no judges, nothing, like
it’s the law of the jungle. When we film the city, we try to
erase most of the references to what we called old Tunis, the
capital … in downtown. So we try to have the kind of contrast
between the two worlds [by having] two or three characters go
outside of the neighborhood and work in the city like Moshen,
his foster father, and the taxi driver, Khlifa. We try to stick to
what the city offers us [for] locations, but we change many
things. We wanted it to be like the modern city, [as seen in]
the bank, when [the characters] go to the bank.
About the shop, I wasn’t thinking about building a new shop
in the district, which will be in the same mood as the district.
When they bring in the antenna, it announces something new
coming, which is capitalism, which is also technology, which
leads to corruption. I wanted the character … to have his own
vision of how the world is going to evolve.
Can you speak about your portrayal of violence in the
film?
It’s a community where there’s no law … no police and it’s
ruled by this one character, which is supposed to be about the
leader of the herd because it also deals with animals. I think
that [in] the end [we] are basically animals—animals who can
speak and think and probably also think in the wrong way, so
violence is part of that world. I couldn’t deal with characters
like Larnouba, the big thug and who’s definitely a rabbit. The
parallel between him and the rabbit is relevant because his
mother cut off his balls when he was 10 years old because she
just wanted him to be the new leader after his father died.
Our society has been built on violence, like American history,
the history of my country, European history. Violence has
been everywhere. While creating that universe … I knew from
the beginning that violence would be there because that’s the
only way that human beings deal with their problems. All
those characters, they reach a point where they can’t discuss
anymore. It’s violence that prevails. Apart from the violence
that you see in the film, violence also comes from the
dialogue. Many who watched the film … said that some lines
were really violent, especially when he [Moshen] rapes the
girl [Ben Essengra] and he says to her you’ll do anything for
me; people thought it was extremely violent because the guy
was taking advantage of her love … and he raped her. There
are many layers of violence in the film. It’s relevant to me, I
think, that we as human beings are extremely violent
creatures. We are the most violent creatures of the world. And
nature, don’t you think so?
Yes it makes sense. History is essentially defined by wars.
Yes, submissions.
Oppressions. It’s everywhere. Like you said earlier, we are
not all that different from animals. There is certain kind of
instinctual, animalistic attributes that we each possess. It’s
shocking that Ben Essengra (the character in the film),
who’s such a sweet-natured person, kills Larnouba.
When she stabs him and says to him at the same time,
“Forgive me, Larnouba,” that sums up everything in the film
as if it’s in the nature to kill and to be violent. Even though
she’s the only one character who does it, because she loves
Moshen and [Larnouba] told her he’s going to kill [Moshen].
That means it’s almost that every character is led to be violent
against his will.

3. 3
How did you film the scenes with the bugs crawling on
Bent Essengra’s skin? It’s so eerie and otherworldly.
The bugs are actually all CGI. You can’t get the ants … to go
in directions like when she puts out her hands. That’s
impossible to do. It lasted forever to get them that perfect.
Many people have been asking whether they were real or not
because they were so realistic. The guys who did it are from
Tunis, called UNIK. We were supposed to work on the CGI
for three or four months but lasted forever, for a year. They
told me if you wanted us to destroy a city like New York in a
very impressive way, it’d have been much easier than doing
this, animating the ants. I wanted them to animate them one by
one, not to have them move at the same time [since] every ant
has its own personality and wouldn’t move like the other
one[s]. At the same time, it’s like a group movement, so
sometimes, like before the rape scene, the ants are there, but
then they disappear all together. Every ant would behave in a
different way. We spent weeks doing 3D models of the ants,
even though you don’t see those details at the end. I think
that’s part of the realism of the whole thing. When you see
it—most people are like, “Are they for real?” They’re so
perfect.
You’ve made both documentary and narrative films. How
did you find the two modes of filmmaking different? And
if you have a preference, which do you like more?
I did a documentary [VHS – Kahloucha, 2006] six years ago.
It made it to Cannes and it made it to Sundance. It made it to
50 more festivals. We [won] awards. I never meant to make a
documentary at that time. I never had any plans for my career.
I heard of the guy who’s the main character in my
documentary and the story was crazy [chronicling guerilla
filmmaker Moncef Kahloucha as he makes his feature, Tarzan
of the Arabs] so I took the camera and filmed him. And that’s
how it happened. It’s not about planning or saying that I have
to do this and that. It’s all about opportunities.
I’m more interested in fictions than documentary. I don’t think
that you become a documentary director or a fiction director.
For my first documentary, I did it because the story was great.
I wasn’t looking for a subject to film.
[Regarding the filmmaking process between fiction and
documentary], it’s totally different. The preparation of making
[Bastardo] took me five or six years to write, rewrite, finance,
and then shoot. Then it took us forever to finish post-
production and to begin the promotion. For documentary, it
took me two or three weeks, but this one I had to shoot for
eight weeks. Features last forever to finish.
Documentary can be written. When you film, there are always
surprises. It’s what I called gifts. You film and something
happens. It’s always unpredictable. When I film a
documentary, I always try to have an eye in the camera but
another eye looking for what’s happening outside of the
frame. So it’s always fresher … it’s more adventurous. You
never know what might happen, but with fictions in a film like
Bastardo, everything has to be perfectly prepared before, like
the set, the actors. If an actor is not there, he’s not there. I’d
have to write and rewrite. It means that I had to write six
versions of the script before. It’s longer. It’s harder. It’s
bigger. That’s it.

4. 4
October 28, 2013
Q&A: Jehane Noujaim of ‘The Square’
by Minnie Li
Egyptian activists Khalid Abdalla (L) and Ahmed
Hassan in Jehane Noujaim’s documentary THE
SQUARE. Courtesy of Noujaim Films.
Jehane Noujaim, an award-winning documentarian known for
Startup.com (2001), Control Room (2004) and Rafea: Solar
Mama (2012), returns with The Square, a documentary
chronicling the Egyptian Revolution. Three years in the
making, the film documents the Arab Spring in Egypt from the
2011 overthrow of Mubarak, through military rule, to the 2012
presidential election and leading up to the military removal of
the Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi in the
summer of 2013. Being cinéma vérité, the film is an intimate
first-hand portrait shot by the filmmaker and Egyptian
activists on the frontline. The Square takes us inside the hearts
and minds of those who are mobilizing this change and reveals
the personal stories and emotional dramas of the everyday
people that we rarely see in the news.
I had a recent opportunity to sit down in a small roundtable
interview with director Jehane Noujaim and producer Karim
Amer to discuss their film.
Egyptian activist Ahmed Hassan in Jehane
Noujaim’s documentary THE SQUARE. Courtesy
of Noujaim Films.
Can you talk about how you felt being in the center of the
revolution?
Jehane Noujaim:
It was a roller coaster ride. When I first arrived to the square, I
had just gotten out of being arrested and had had eight hours
of questioning and finally told the people who arrested me the
truth that I was a filmmaker. With that honesty comes a
feeling of no matter what happens, I’m going to say how I
feel. I felt a little bit I think at the moment what all these
people in the square felt. So when we first we got to the
square, I think it was this moment of seeing people, all the
elation, the feel of hopefulness, there was an incredible energy
to the square and when Mubarak stepped down, such…
Karim Amer:
Such electricity, it was like something spread through you and
you were witnessed something that made you realized that
everything that you saw had been possible. Also, the struggle
that happened was kind of elation, but there was a violent
period of people who killed, people who tear-gassed and
assaulted. What they gained was the sense of what we were
doing is bigger than us as individuals and we have
responsibility. Sometimes you never plan on this happening
and you don’t plan on being in the mist of revolution. I think
that for us as people was something that pulled us in, and then
our characters were people who we witnessed as kind of at the
forefront of that. People came from different walks of life.
Even they had completely different perspectives, the thing
they shared is that they were unwilling to compromise. They
were unwilling to go back to the place where their future had
already been written, where hope was lost and that
continuation, determination kept us going as well.
JN:
When you know the person next to you if they get arrested or
be in prison for their life or worst, and so it gives you this
amazing stretch. And people no matter what their background
was, whether they were, the people in the square, men,
women, religious, secular, different classes. I think they
shared this belief that they didn’t want to continue living…and
having children in this country where they felt like things were
corrupt and such devastating things could happen. So Khalid
[Khalid Abdalla is a British-Egyptian actor and filmmaker
(star of The Kite Runner, United 93 and Green Zone).]…our
main character talks about a taxi driver he spoke with, is
“either you take me or you take me and my kids, and my
grandkids and my grandkids’ kids, so it’s better that you just
take me.” So that was the choice people felt.

5. 5
Egyptian activist Ramy Essam (R) in Jehane
Noujaim’s documentary THE SQUARE.
Courtesy of Noujaim Films.
How has this experience changed you?
JN:
I’ll just speak personally; it’s a revolution both inside and out.
Khalid said that what we witnessed there was a change in what
you imagine it’s possible. When you see that being
challenged, cause I went to the square and thought, I was in
the U.S., the freest in the world. I marched against the Iraq
war and nothing happened. So then when I was sitting in
Egypt, the country that I’ve grown up in where I know that
people can get brutally attacked and taken to prison very
easily and they managed to bring down this dictator of thirty
years, and watching people speak to each other that they have
never spoken to before, there was such this feeling of
possibility. And that change can be in the inside too. It makes
you question your limits personally as well as in your work, in
your family and it also when you spend two years with people
that will sacrifice everything for what they believe in. It’s very
difficult to be kind of wishy-washy about your principles. I
find it very difficult to compromise on things that I really
really believe in.
KA:
The other thing we all witnessed and learned was also the
process of how you change a country or how you make any
political change. In the end, it’s a dedicated few who as Jahane
says stick to their principles and are unwilling to compromise
and keep going and you don’t need the will of the nation to
change a nation. You need the people that can inspire the
nation. I’ll never forget being in the square one day when it
was like one of the darkest moments. It’s like twenty days into
the sit-in, and we were talking to one of the people in the film,
“How are you still here? People outside the square don’t even
understand why you are here anymore. The majority of
Egyptians aren’t even supporting anymore and what are you
doing?” And he looked at us and he said, “It’s not about just
what they think. The square is a symbol. It’s a symbol of
continuous resistance and it’s important to preserve that.”
Graffiti artist Abo Bakr’s collaboration with
revolutionary artists as seem on street near Tahrir
Square from Jehane Noujaim’s documentary THE
SQUARE. Courtesy of Noujaim Films.
Can you speak about the historical context of the initial
gathering and the events that led up to it?
JH:
We always had a pharaoh. So we are still trying to break the
concept of pharaoh. We don’t have that in the U.S. – you have
the stories about the Rosa Parks that sat in the back of the bus.
I think we need more stories like that where individuals are
able to be the hero and break the narrative. That was part of
our hope with this film actually. So I think that we were still in
the process in Egypt.
In 2007, I came out with a film that I co-directed with Sherief
El Katsha called Egypt: We are Watching You. It was about
three women that were part of the movement against the
government. What they were trying to do was document all of
the corruption around election and get all of these videos and
testimony to the judges in Egypt so that…the judges could
stand up against the government from within. And, there were
huge protests, but these protests always ended in mass arrests,
beatings and you have one protestor surrounded by twenty
policemen. So nothing had ever exploded in the same way.
KA:
There were a lot of people who were not known and who were
fighting the frontline everyday for little pieces of change. And
their stories most people never know. And it was, eventually
culminated with a few milestone events like there was the
torture of Khaled Saeed. That was one of the main triggers.
What’s happening in Egypt and historically also happens in
these movements. It’s not about just one country. It’s also
about the interconnectedness of ideology. There’s a failure or
success of a new idea in one country or amongst one group of
people, it could spread to others, that’s when we witnessed the
Arab Spring. In Egypt, the stakes may be a little different,
where tanks are rolling over you. And in Syria where there’ll
be gas. I think this is part of a global attempt. And the
evidence of that are the pockets of people power
demonstrations happening in squares across the world so
whether it’s in Occupy or in Rio or in Athens or Moscow,
there is constant kind of claiming of rights that young people
are doing and the interconnectivity that technology provides
us with. We see that in our film and with Egypt where people
can now communicate with one another. It allows the
narrative to be more global so that it’s not about necessarily
me just convincing everyone in my country in my street of
what I believe. I can tap into a global network of people
who’ll stand with me in solidarity and will help me. We saw
that in Egypt when the revolution happened, you got people,
who have never been to Egypt, online and sending facts on
how to make a tear gas canister, a gas mask and how to do
this.
Ahmed has a remarkable presence in the film. There are
highly aestheticized shots of him walking in the empty
street that suggest peacefulness and another scene of him
breaking down shaking in the corner captured in a low

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lighting, medium close-up feels a bit horror film-esque.
Can you talk about the way you frame his story?
JH:
Because the square was such a loud rambunctious place
usually in the news, we really wanted to show what was
behind the headlines and the personal human story. And so we
really try to find the quiet moments as much as possible
because it was often those quiet, lonely, scare moments that
the world never saw.
KA:
Jahane has an incredible ability to really capture emotion in
people, and like the material [showing] that he was shaking.
He was at this very low point. Jahane just felt that and she’s
like, “we have to be with him right now.”
JH:
He had been in the square the night before where he was one
of the last cameras in the square, and he had witnessed some
of the footage that you see in the film, the footage he shot.
KA:
He shot a quarter of the movie.
JH:
His camera [shot] most of the footage on the frontlines. So he
had been one of the last people standing. He witnessed
somebody dying.
KA:
You also see that there’s a guy… [wearing] a yellow helmet,
he said, “Look what the army is doing to us,” [and] there’s a
trail of blood.
JH:
That was Ahmed’s footage. And so he had called Khalid up
and had this blood-curdling scream like I had never heard him.
And he said, “We had cleared the square at this point.”
KA:
And basically, we had left Cairo with the drives because it was
dangerous to be there with the footage, and we were scared.
They had raided an office next door from us. We worried they
were going to come in.
JH:
So we took all the drives and left Cairo…I hadn’t been able to
sleep the whole night before. I think when you become so
close to somebody and what they’re going through. And now,
then a year of following him and his emotion, you feel a
person. And we told him, “You have to get on a bus and come
out to us. Now, just get out of there!” Because I had
nightmares that he had been killed. So he got on a bus and he
came. He [rode] at dawn, the middle of the night basically. He
was shaking and Kamir said, “You can’t film him now. He
needs to go to bed.”
KA:
[Jahane] said, “No, this is exactly what you have to capture.” I
think that’s Jahane’s sensitivity of capturing emotion in a way.
Like also when he had just been wounded and you see him
smoking a cigarette, and I was like “What are you doing?”
JK:
[Kamir’s] like, “I’m going to write the character’s bill of
rights.” You can’t film somebody. And you feel awful.
KA:
And these are the moments that end up in the film. Being so
powerful because they speak lines of emotion that anyone can
understand.
JK:
But it requires a trust with the character to allow you to do that
as well.
KA:
There were a lot of cameras in the square, a lot of people can
cover, film what’s happening. But there’s a difference in
filming what’s happening and between feeling what’s
happening. And to capture that feeling is really the challenge.
I think that’s Jahane coming from this kind of school of
documentary filmmaking that really respects verité. We’ve
worked with Pennebaker at a young age. [Donn Alan
Pennebaker is one of the American documentary pioneers in
Direct Cinema.]
And being from that school of thinking, I think that’s what
differentiates us. I think that’s what for us in the end guided
this film. The feeling that we are not going to have every
single event. We are not going to tell you everything that’s
happened in Egypt. We can’t even explain to you exactly what
happened in the revolution. We are not going to be the only
film about the revolution. It’s going to be films for years to
come, books for years to come…but what we can do is
hopefully we can help you feel what is like to be there. To go
through it and you can come to your conclusions on many of
the levels. But we feel that what we have been able to capture
is the documentation of that feeling over the course of two and
a half years.
Egyptian activist Ahmed Hassan in Jehane
Noujaim’s documentary THE SQUARE. Courtesy
of Noujaim Films.
At the end of the film, you just feel so connected to Ahmed.
He’s just so charming; he’s so friendly and you want to get
to know him more. Also, the way you portray him in the
film suggests that this guy is born to do this, as one of the
leading voices of this revolution.
JH:
That’s exactly how I feel about him. He’s amazing.

7. 7
October 15, 2013
Film Review: The Fifth Estate
by Minnie Li
Wikileaks is inseparable from its leader and public face, Julian
Assange. The website gained international recognition (or
notoriety) in 2010 when it released Iraq war cables that private
Chelsea Manning (then Bradley) supplied. Then Assange’s
personal life took center stage when two former Wikileaks
volunteers accused him of sexual misconduct, and the
Stockholm Criminal Court issued an international arrest
warrant for Assange on these grounds. As a result, Assange
has been holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since
June 19, 2012. British authorities have indicated that he will
be arrested if he leaves the embassy. The backstory is
uncovered in The Fifth Estate, seen through the eyes of Daniel
Domscheit-Berg, Wikileaks’s former spokesperson.
Domscheit-Berg, aka Daniel Schmitt (Daniel Brühl, Rush,
2013), is a boyish tech geek with a penchant for electronic
music. He’s an idealist; he wants to change the world. He
believes in Wikileaks, even tattooing the organization’s logo
on his body. He puts Assange’s work above his life. So when
Assange pops up at Schmitt’s home, just as he and his
girlfriend are about to have sex, Assange tells Schmitt to get to
work. Schmitt does, and his girlfriend storms out.
Though already admiring Wikileaks, Schmitt first meets
Assange in person at a tech convention. Assange, more serious
than Schmitt, wears his snow-white hair chin-length. He is a
nomad, carrying his life in an ill-fitting green jacket and a
backpack. Schmitt helps Assange get into the convention and
gets him a room for his presentation. They hit it off and
partner to expand Wikileaks’s back office operations and
recruit volunteers.
Benedict Cumberbatch portrays Assange convincingly.
Schmitt’s girlfriend calls him a “mad prophet,” and he is.
Cumberbatch hits all the notes; he has the poise, the charisma,
but also the arrogance, erraticism, paranoia, and recklessness.
Cumberbatch is the best part of the film.
But the film misses more often than it hits. It relegates talents
like Stanley Tucci, Anthony Mackie, and Laura Linney to
single note characters as US government officials. They call
each other to report a security breach; they talk about Assange
when he’s not there. They don’t do much else. They are
cardboard cutouts, existing solely so the film can point to them
as uncovering Wikileaks’s recklessness.
Director Bill Condon’s The Fifth Estate is part history, part
biopic, and part dramatic thriller, and for this reason the story
is never fully realized, leaving the characters and their
relationships barely developed. This is a film about many
things—new media, Julian Assange, Wikileaks, activism—but
none emerges as a complete thought.
Limité Rating: 2/5
Director: Bill Condon
Screenwriter: Josh Singer
Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Daniel Brühl, Carice van
Houten, Stanley Tucci, Anthony Mackie, Laura Linney, Alicia
Vikander, David Thewlis, Peter Capaldi, Dan Stevens
Distributors: Touchstone Pictures, Walt Disney Studios
TRT: 128 min.
Release: October 18, 2013

8. 8
October 15, 2013
Film Review: Kill Your Darlings
by Minnie Li
Allen Ginsburg, Jack Kerouac, and William S. Burroughs
were some of the leading lights of the Beat Generation, and
they were all friends of Lucien Carr. The 1944 murder of
David Kammerer by Carr serves as the backdrop of the film’s
story, and also of Ginsburg’s coming of age.
Ginsburg (Daniel Radcliffe) is shy, sensitive, and sheltered.
He lives in New Jersey with his working-class poet father,
Louis (David Cross), and emotionally unstable mother, Naomi
(Jennifer Jason Leigh). Following admission to Columbia
University he meets Carr (Dane DeHaan)—charismatic,
uninhibited, and handsome. They first exchange glances when
Carr recites a lewd passage from Henry Miller from the top of
a library table. Ginsburg is immediately captivated by Carr’s
performance. Soon, Ginsburg is invited into Carr’s circle,
which includes Kerouac (Jack Huston), Burroughs (Ben
Foster), and Kammerer (Michael C. Hall). Ginsburg becomes
a replacement for Kammerer, whom Carr attempts to block
out.
Like college students nearly always have, Ginsburg and his
friends frequently get drunk and try drugs. But the scenes of
drugs and drink merely offer comic relief from the darker
themes the story later reveals. Ginsburg, at first, is hesitant
when he follows Carr to a party at Kammerer’s home, refusing
drinks, cigarettes, and drugs. But Ginsburg is fascinated by the
boisterousness and festivity, and forgets to see his mother. The
next day, he watches as his mother is taken to a mental
hospital.
Nearly every college story has its messy love and heartbreak.
This one is no exception. Ginsburg is enamored with Carr
from their first meeting. Carr, like a femme fatale, never
ceases to work his magic on those around him. Carr’s arresting
beauty and charm is irresistible and mesmerizing and it
doesn’t matter that he’s bad news or a user. Director John
Krokidas’s freestyle handheld camera is particularly affecting
in capturing this one-sided love affair. It is both intimate and
inviting. Each time Carr brushes Ginsburg aside, we
understand and empathize with Ginsburg’s pain and
awkwardness. But we can’t help but understand the power that
Carr holds over him.
Kill Your Darlings is an impressive debut by first-timer
Krokidas and his writing partner Austin Bunn. The young
ensemble is simply stellar. Radcliffe, playing the reserved and
sexually confused adolescent Ginsburg, is superb. This
coming-of-age is more realistic than that of the character he is
most famous for, Harry Potter. Thus, despite the story’s
occasional clichés and often-predictable plot, the film is these
characters’ induction into the bitch of living.
Limité Rating: 4/5
Director: John Krokidas
Screenwriters: Austin Bunn, John Krokidas
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Dane DeHaan, Michael C. Hall, Jack
Huston, Ben Foster, David Cross, Jennifer Jason Leigh,
Elizabeth Olsen, Kyra Sedgwick
Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics
Site: sonyclassics.com/killyourdarlings
TRT: 104 min.
Release: October 16, 2013

9. 9
December 2, 2013
Q&A: Narco Cultura – The City of Angels,
The Capital of Murder
by Minnie Li
NARCO CULTURA
Directed by Shaul Schwarz
Narcocorrdio singers are big in Mexico and a growing
subculture in the United States. They sing about drug
traffickers, and glorify them as outlaws. They use AK-47s,
bazookas and machine guns as props in their performances. As
the celebration of traffickers’ lifestyle, killings and violence
becomes yet more popular in both countries, the death toll
continues to mount in Mexico. Richi Soto is a Crime Scene
Investigator in Juarez. He sees dead bodies daily. Gangs often
target CSI agents and have killed many of his coworkers.
Edgar Quintero is a narcocorrido singer based in Los Angeles.
He makes a living singing about the violence in Mexico. Shaul
Schwarz’s Narco Cultura immerses us into the lives of Richi
and Edgar as the narco-influenced music culture thrives.
I recently sat down with director Shaul Schwarz to talk about
his latest film and the growing Narcocorrido culture in the
U.S. and Mexico.
How did you find your subjects? And did you always have
in mind that the documentary will follow two individuals
occupying two different realities the drug war has created?
From 2008 to 2010, I took pictures [in Juarez Mexico] and
that’s how I found the subjects. The [pictures] got published in
magazines, it had a kind of limits about what I was feeling,
which was bigger than gangs fighting gangs. I wanted the
culture of how it really touches regular people and millions of
people on both sides of the border. It all clicked together on
this one trip I was on an assignment for National Geographic
Magazine. Initially I was taking pictures more of the conflict. I
told them that I wanted to do a story on the culture of drug war
rather than about the drug war. So we covered a lot of
different things in the culture, not just the music, the Santa
Muerte, a lot of different aspects of how this informs this
culture, mainly in Mexico but also in the United States. In one
morning, I worked in Tijuana, and I saw two murders that day.
In that afternoon, I drove across the border to Riverside, CA.
It was so shocking the difference and this feeling that I had of
that day of how it’s all cycled. People in Tijuana came to see
the show and went back to Tijuana. It was so close yet it was
so far. The pictures of the show weren’t that powerful to them
because they said, “Hey this looks like Halloween. It’s art. So
what? [Quentin] Tarantino makes violent movies.” I
understood that it’s very different, but I also understood that at
that moment it was really hard to tell with a still picture. And
pretty much the movie was born then because I had all this
and I was already with a CSI in Juarez. It took three years to
make the movie. But these juxtaposing characters and the
feelings that I had from that day are the main guiding feeling
of the film.
Do these shows take place exclusively in the U.S. or in
Mexico as well?
They take place in both. There are genres and styles vary a
little bit upon their location. In the U.S., it’s celebrated a little
bit differently. It has also gotten much bigger in the U.S. in the
last 5 to 10 years. Before that, Corridos are regionally from
north of Mexico. The capital is Mexico City and that’s where
you want to succeed as a Corrido singer. In L.A., what’s really
is to the youth, Latino Youth. In America, it’s a way to
connect to their heritage. Edgar [character in the documentary]
was born in the U.S. He doesn’t really know Juarez or the
bodies or how it looks like. He sits in a safe place and sings
about it. So it’s much easier in the sense to be more bloody, to

10. 10
be more hard-core hitting. The Corridos have been around
forever. But this genre of super violent, super related to the
cartel is new. I think that’s kind of the spin. {Hi Age – can
you take a stab at this sentence? I am having a hard time with
it.} It’s a kind of cycle, for Edgar who’s American-based, by
quickly learned that this is biggest thing to get credibility in
Mexico but for many of the Mexicans, if a Mexican writes a
song about a specific trafficker which is often what they do,
their biggest thing is – will it play in the radio in America. If it
plays in America, it will get bigger in Mexico. L.A. has tons
of Latinos and Mexicans and is an entertainment capital so it
became a mecca of it. But it spreads all over to Miami,
Phoenix, Chicago and New York. L.A. stays very much a big
center of it, and in Mexico, it exists all over.
How often did you go back Juarez to film? What safety
precautions did you take?
Juarez was dangerous, but it was as expected. There were
really obvious tricks we did to stay safe – a no is a no. It was
never a movie to investigate a certain file. A) We were always
honest. B) When somebody said don’t shoot, we won’t shoot
it. We’d go to 10 crime scenes and would shoot one out of it.
We never spent more than a week because we always wanted
to be in and out. What we didn’t expect was that the band [got
into] heart of the cartel. And that came out with a lot of trust
with the character.
Why people glorify this kind of lifestyle, and what’s the
psychology at work here?
The main thing of the film is trying to understand that. The
day when I crossed Tijuana that was what I was so angry
about. I spent two years photographing dead people and some
people are dancing. I couldn’t understand.
It’s perplexing.
That’s the feeling I was trying to convey but the more I spend
time with the bands in this scene and not only this one band,
the more I stopped being angry with them, and I understood
them.
I always give this example. Let’s take a 12-year-old kid in
Juarez. He has a family and sees his mom working in a
maquiladora factory she makes $5, $6 or $7 a day, works her
tail off. Twelve or thirteen years after NAFTA, all this hope
but this same kid, he sees 16 year-old, 17 year-old grow up in
their ford pickups and their impunity is complete. They can do
anything they want. It’s not only that they can do anything
they want, in his eyes, the hot girls in the school want to date
him and it seems nothing to us. What I am saying is – I
understand why that kid steps into this cartel.
In a way, the singer is simply making a living.
He’s a product of reality. This is what sells. He likes it. It’s a
way for him to feel connected back home. In the end, it’s all
entertainment.
What I really saw in the scene is that 99% of these kids
whether it’s Phoenix, Miami or L.A., they are not bad kids.
They just want to feel belong. They want to play Narco for a
night because they always hear about it. This drug war is not
getting any better.
I was in a Quinceanera…up in the mountains – not big in the
trafficking scene. Suddenly in the middle of it, kids singing
[the Corrido songs]. And I couldn’t believe it. I wasn’t even
covering this story but the reality is that this is their culture
now. That’s the big push of the film. To look at this as if we
want to change what the next generation thinks. We got to get
more honest about the reality that we settled for on the drug
war. I want to do a Vérité movie, a movie about two
characters and their lives. Each on one side of the barrier but
through them, I want you to walk out and say “oh-my-god”
this is such a fucked up reality.

11. 11
December 2, 2013
South Asian International Film Festival
Preview:
GOOD MORNING, KARACHI — Centerpiece by Minnie
Li
Karachi is Pakistan’s most populous city and the world’s most
populous predominantly Muslim city. Director Sabiha Sumar,
a critically acclaimed independent filmmaker, was born there.
Her works challenge social and political extremism and call
for social change. She produced the short documentary
“Saving Face,” which won the 2012 Academy Award. Her
latest feature tells the story of a woman who defies traditions
to pursue her dream of becoming a model.
Rafina lives in one of the city’s working-class neighborhoods
with her mother and younger brother. The radiant face of a
model, plastered onto a billboard, stares at her from across her
bedroom. Rafina stares at it with the hope of being a model
herself some day. Despite her mother’s wish that she marry,
Rafina is more interested in a career. Her life changes when
her neighbor Rosie lands her a job at Radiance, a female
modeling agency and high-end salon. Rafina is tall, pretty, and
slender, and she quickly gets a modeling job there.
This is not a love story, but Rafina does entangle herself in a
love triangle. The two men involved are symbols more than
they are people, representing opposing and conflicting
ideologies of traditionalism and modernity. Arif perhaps
ironically belongs to a political party that supports Benazir
Bhutto, Pakistan’s only female Prime Minister, although his
wish for Rafina is that she takes the role of a stay-at-home
wife. Jamal is a Radiance executive who believes fashion can
help change the lives of women in Pakistan, but he’s also a
womanizer. Thus, the film comments, a woman does not
achieve her liberation by finding the right kind of man to take
care of her, but by her own actions.
The film is a fairy tale. The lead is too conveniently pretty and
her rise to success is swift. The narrative touches on but barely
digs deep into issues of sexism, woman’s choice, and the
decadence of the fashion industry. In the end, it succeeds as a
simplified, feel-good version about female empowerment.
Limité Rating: 3/5
Director: Sabiha Sumar
Screenwriters: Malia Scotch Marmo, Sabiha Sumar, Samhita
Arni
Cast: Amna Ilyas, Beo Raana Zafar, Yasir Aqueel, Atta
Yaqub
Country: Pakistan
Language: Urdu (with English subtitles)
TRT: 85 min.
Screening: Friday, December 6, 7:30pm (NYIT Auditorium)
THE GOOD ROAD — Closing Night by Minnie Li
The Good Road tells three intertwined stories with a cast of
professional and nonprofessional actors. A truck driver and his
partner make a shady deal with a gas station owner; the task
should be simple, as the station owner tells them that the
police have been paid at the checkpoint. A middle-class
couple from Mumbai accidentally leaves their seven-year-old
son at a gas station; the boy then finds himself under the care
of the driver and his partner. A nine-year-old girl, on her way
to her grandmother’s, stumbles upon a brothel; she befriends a
young prostitute who gives her food.
Written and directed by Gyan Correa, The Good Road is
inspired by the filmmaker’s own journeys across India. The
story is simple. The characters are ordinary. The road serves
different purposes for different people—a job, a vacation, and
a path towards family. These personal stories transcend ethnic
and class lines. The dialogue is terse and the performances are
delivered with subtlety. The wide shots capture the barren
landscape surrounding the highway along the Rann desert and
give it a sense of tranquility. Truck drivers are usually the out-
of-towners who stop over in these sparsely makeshift shacks
and gas stations for gas, tea, food, and occasional
entertainment. In these settings, Correa tells a story of
kindness between strangers.
These are grim tales of everyday life, but the film maintains a
sense of optimism. Rich or poor, young or old, these lives
cross paths. Although the worst can happen—and we expect
that it will, just as in real life—it doesn’t. In the end, Correa’s
characters find good in the people they encounter.
Limité Rating: 4/5
Director: Gyan Correa

12. 12
Screenwriter: Gyan Correa
Cast: Shamji Dhana Kerasia, Priyank Upadhyay, Poonam
Kesar Singh, Sonali Kulkarni, Ajay Gehi, Keval Katrodia
Country: India
Language: Gujarati (with English subtitles)
TRT: 92 min.
Screening: Sunday, December 8, 7:30pm (SVA Theatre)
December 21, 2013
Film Review: Her
by Minnie Li
Spike Jonze has only directed four films since Being John
Malkovich in 1999, which garnered praise and won him an
Oscar nomination. Her is his latest and his first solo writing
credit. Like his previous works, Her is a melancholic
meditation on life. This time, the sense of emotional
displacement, the desire for intimacy, and understanding and
acceptance of oneself take place in a love story between a man
and a computer operating system.
Her is set some time in the near future in Los Angeles, which
is then made up of beautifully planned buildings and an
immaculate landscape. Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix)
lives and works in these high rises. He has a dull office job as
a personal letter writer. Theodore prefers being alone and
avoids extended conversations. He hides in his ear bud—a sort
of smart phone of the future—which organizes his life and
connects him to his personal computer and the Web. But a
new, advanced operating system enters the market. It is a
significant advance: it has consciousness. Theodore meets his
OS 1, and it named itself Samantha (Scarlett Johansson).
Samantha’s first word to him is a radiating “Hello.” He
hesitates, and responds awkwardly.
Clearly, they are opposites, but their connection is immediate;
they fall in love. Their relationship feels real—with the
honeymoon phase, the ecstasy, the laughter, the fight, the
jealousy, and the emotional connection that every human
couple experiences. The chemistry between Phoenix and
Johansson is impeccable. He tells her everything and she
listens and offers advice. He no longer mopes. As life
becomes less of a burden, Theodore goes on dates, finds time
for friends, and finally faces his divorce process.
The film uses vivid colors—shades of orange and red—that
fill the screen with warmth. Theodore wears brightly colored
button-ups, which is ironic, given the contrast with his
personality. He is not what he wears. Its visual vibrancy
sometimes recalls Wes Anderson (there, as well, bright colors
don’t indicate light-heartedness or joy). In these films, life is
more complex and mysterious than its immediate sheen
implies. Her and Jonze are simply unmissable.
Limité Rating: 5/5
Director: Spike Jonze
Screenwriter: Spike Jonze
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Pratt,
Rooney Mara, Amy Adams, Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Olivia
Wilde
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Site: herthemovie.com
TRT: 126 min.

13. 13
February 3, 2014
Limité Guide to 2014′s Most Anticipated
Movies
TRANSCENDENCE
by Minnie Li
Wally Pfister won an Oscar for cinematography (Inception,
2010) and served as director of photography for all but one of
Christopher Nolan’s films. He makes his directorial debut
with Transcendence. Newcomer Jack Paglen wrote the
screenplay, which appeared on the 2012 Black List, the annual
list of the year’s best unproduced screenplays. Nolan signed
on as executive producer and Pfister enlisted Jess Hall (The
Spectacular Now, 2013) as director of photography.
This highly anticipated techno-thriller captures some of the
cerebral sci-fi concepts of Inception and 2001: A Space
Odyssey. Johnny Depp plays Dr. Will Caster, a leading
artificial intelligence researcher whose consciousness is
transferred to a machine he builds. With no heavy makeup or
costumes, Depp takes on a less wacky, more measured role—
though he is reportedly being paid $20 million against 15% of
the gross to play the character. Rebecca Hall and two Nolan
regulars, Morgan Freeman and Cillian Murphy, star alongside
Depp. Alcon Entertainment teamed up with DMG
Entertainment, the Chinese company that produced and
distributed Looper and Iron Man 3, to produce and finance the
film. Warner Brothers will serve as US distributor.
Director: Wally Pfister
Screenwriter: Jack Paglen
Cast: Johnny Depp, Kate Mara, Morgan Freeman, Rebecca
Hall, Cillian Murphy, Paul Bettany
Genre: Sci-fi
Distributor: Warner Bros.
February 24, 2014
Q&A: OMAR interview with Director Hany
Abu Assad and Actor / Producer Waleed
Zuaiter
by Minnie Li
Hany Abu Assad is best known for his film, Paradise Now
(2005), for which he won a Golden Globe and garnered his
first Oscar nomination. His film Omar is nominated for an
Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Omar is a small scale
Palestinian drama, a coming-of-age love story, and a political
thriller. Omar and his friends Tarek and Amjad are freedom
fighters. Omar and Tarek’s sister Nadia are in love. But the
friendship of the three is tested when Omar is caught for the
threes’ killing an Israeli soldier. Rami, an Israeli military
agent, then offers Omar a fateful choice – and the clock is
ticking on Rami’s offer.
I participated in a small roundtable interview with Director
Hany Abu Assad and Actor/Producer, Waleed Zuaiter to
discuss the panics that spawned Omar and took it from paper
to the big screen, and the hurdles they faced in making the first
ever privately funded Palestinian film.
Interview with Hany Abu Assad
Are you excited about your upcoming adventures in L.A.?

14. 14
Hany Abu Assad: It’s funny, because you have this experience
before and you live in tension for a month or six weeks and
every day the tension is increasing and increasing. The first
time it was fun because it’s the first time. The disappointment
was really heavy because you’d hear someone else’s name and
you are disappointed whether you like it or not. Because I
know the taste of disappointment. I’m like “oh no I have to go
through this again!” I’m traumatized. And this especially
because here we have really tough competition. All the films
we’ve seen are really good. I would vote for them. There’s no
one where I said no I would not choose this movie. It’s very
tough this year. This is why I feel like I have to go through
this. The Oscar is so tense for everybody. Your legs will bend
because of the tension. Every advertisement, it’s like a show,
and you have to go through this.
This is a very different story from your other films. How
did you have it?
H: One day I was about to shoot The Courier, a film I made
here, and I felt like it’s not going to be a good movie and you
want to escape, well not escape, survive the project. That
night, I remember waking up at 4 o’clock in the morning
sweating in a panic, and I was thinking, “Oh my god I need a
project I can rely on after The Courier.” Think! And I came up
with the movie in four hours. The whole structure was thought
up from 8 o’clock where I wrote the last scene.
Did you want your film to have a coming of age aspect?
O: It’s so funny, that night for four hours, almost everything in
the movie was from that four hours. It has to be a love story,
but they have to be young otherwise it’s not believable or
pathetic if they’re old. It has to be a coming of age otherwise
you don’t believe why they’re like this and that. Almost
everything was done in a panic in four hours. What happens to
me like when you’re in panic when a mother sees their
daughter under a car and a mother will be stronger than the
car, panic will let you think very sharp and all your knowledge
you have will be very well used.
You had complete creative control. What could you
achieve in this that you couldn’t in the past?
H: In everything there is a limitation and there is a price. I
indeed had my artistic freedom, but I had a lot of limitations of
resources. You pay a price for everything. As a filmmaker you
always want to explore new ventures. I have the luxury of
choosing the light and lens I want to compromise with
mainstream, or you can do a film you are happy with 100%
and fuck luxury.
The casting director did a great job.
H: It’s true. I have to give her credit. She is the only casting
director available; we don’t have a choice. She’s the best. She
worked with other good filmmakers and she had a good
record. You know how it works. Casting directors bring you
tons of options and you see their pictures and videos. And
from thousands you pick hundreds you actually meet. From
the hundred you bring back 20 for another test, and from 20
you reduce to five. It’s a process of testing, testing all the time.
Because I use invisible style, the style of the movie doesn’t
draw attention to itself. It says to the audience here’s your
character, live with him. The actor becomes the most
important element in the movie because his emotions and
believability is letting you live with him or not. That’s why
during casting I’m very careful and bring an actor back many
times and test him again and again until I choose it. Then
when I have the cast, I rehearse a lot because when you
rehearse you have the luxury to change things without the
pressure of shooting. When you are shooting, it’s just pushing
them in a direction I want, but also letting them go because we
did a very careful process of casting and rehearsal.
What was the reaction in Israel?
H: It was mixed, though I have to say, it was mostly positive
and I was really surprised. I was thinking it would be more
hostile reactions. The hostile reactions were based on political
ideals, not the quality of the movie. My only question to
everybody, it doesn’t matter what I think politically. Take the
Godfather, politically he is very wrong but it doesn’t matter,
you appreciate it. After seeing the movie, crime is still crime,
but you appreciate that it challenges your ideas. You
appreciate it so much because you felt sympathy with
someone whom in reality you would never feel sympathy for.
I tell everybody, we can discuss politics, but movies are about
emotional involvement with characters you can’t be with in
reality. Until finally the reactions from the Israelis was good.
Most of them. Some for political reasons dismiss it.
Have people seen this film in Palestine?
H: Yes, and most of the reactions were excellent. I feel it
succeeded because I don’t want to make a film just for
sophisticated audiences or festivals like Cannes. I really want
to do a movie for the people and for my mother to understand
it and enjoy it. Most of the reactions in Palestine were
excellent. For sure you will have people that don’t like it and
that’s alright. How many times have I admired directors and
they have done a movie I didn’t like? It’s nothing personal;
it’s your right to not like a movie you didn’t like.
What did your mother say?
H: She loved it. More than Paradise Now. She thought it was
a compelling story.
Interview with Waleed Zuaiter
How did you become involved in the project?
Waleed Zuaiter: Hany was introduced to me by a mutual
friend shortly after Paradise Now. We just hit it off and stayed
in touch. We are always fans of each other’s work. Then in

15. 15
June 2011, he sent me a script. He was in LA. He said I’d love
for you to read the script because I’m interested in you playing
the role of [Agent] Rami. I read it. I really liked the script. By
the way, it was 72 pages. I’ve never read a feature script that
short but it was a fully flushed out story. It’s almost identical
to what you see on screen because the shooting script round up
being 90 pages, but we rounded bringing it down. I love the
role. It was one of the best scripts I’ve ever read. I told him I
think I can raise some money and I’d love to produce this with
you.
What was this production like compared to the American
and European productions that you’ve been in?
W: Very limited resources. Adam [Bakri] (Omar) who filmed
41 days did not have a trailer. He had a chair and at one point
people were sitting on his chair so he wrote Adam on the
chair. That was like his trailer. It was difficult to get the
equipment from Tel Aviv into Nazareth, which is a part of
Israel. It was logistically the companies we were worried
about because it’s an Arab town. We did get some good
package on equipment from Israeli companies, but they were
nowhere near the kind of equipment and resources that I am
used to. That was the main difference. The crew had limited
experience if they are lucky they get to work on one or two
films every two years.
How did you find the crew?
W: Hany basically assembled the whole crew and the cast and
everybody including myself. He sought the crews that worked
with him on Paradise Now. It was courageous for him to say
“guys we are doing a Palestinian film.” We are not getting
European government funds. We don’t have to employ
Europeans so let’s step it up. We did and it was a big risk, but
it paid off. When you are doing an Independent film. Let me
tell you this…we had a bond company for the film; you don’t
do a completion bond for a $2 million film. It just doesn’t
make sense. The completion bond it’s really like an American
studio or an American invention. The financiers, my brothers
being two of the major ones insisted on the completion bond
because of the volatile situation. Filming in the west bank and
everything so it was additional insurance. We had to; people
did not get paid their first check until the last week of
November because in order to get the bond you have to get all
of the funds in at the same time. We had a big investor
dropped out in pre-production. We had to delay by a month
and a half. I basically had to raise the money with barely
getting a cell phone reception on Hany’s rooftop in Nazareth.
But we got it and we did it. People were working for free for
three or four months because this was such a big deal for
them. I never had an experience like that.
Why was it so difficult to get the film financed? Hany has
received so many accolades?
W: it wasn’t difficult for him to do it in the same model with
European funds. He already had that in place. He has
something in Germany and something from a couple other
places. There was a Middle East Entertainment company
interested but definitely wasn’t the full budget. It was
probably less than half. That’s when we started talking this
completely new model. It’s the very first time any Palestinian
film has financed with pure equity.
Not like a state film?
W: No, there’s no Palestine film commission. There’s no
Palestinian film fund. We were able to maintain full creative
control and hiring control by keeping it Palestinian. We got
5% of our budget from Dubai. It’s still a 95% privately funded
Palestine film, which is history. That’s why it was very hard.
It was new for everyone too not just for Hany and myself.
Even the line producer said this is so much stress because you
are getting soft money from these other countries where you
don’t have to recoup with full equity. The accounting
measures that went into it, the legal measures that went into it,
the bond also helped with that a little bit. It took up so much
more work from us. It was harder.
What was your preparation like?
W: It’s very different from anything I’ve ever done. I never
had this much time with a project. I just had two [rehearsals],
both with Adam because all my scenes are with him. I was
[also] producing. [With] all this stress I described, I didn’t
look very closely at my character until half way through
filming. I was extremely nervous but it was because I had all
those other stuff to worry about. I read the script maybe eight
times. I’ve never really done that for anything else. I had a
dialect coach. I tried to interview people that are in Rami’s
position.
You did try?
W: I did try but they can’t for obvious security reasons. I did
talk to crew members that were soldiers. Everybody in the
Israelis side serves in the military. I talked to our gaffer who
served in the Israelis military in Lebanon. That was the most
recent war that broke out. He had some really interesting
stories. My style is that I just ask tons of questions. It’s
probably easier for me as a producer you have access to
everybody.
Nobody will say so.
W: Exactly, some people would openly talk about it. I didn’t
have anybody openly talk about it. Many people from cast
members and from crew members had been interrogated by
somebody like Rami and knew collaborators and knew of
collaborators that were killed by their own people because
they were traitors.

16. 16
What did people in Palestine and Israel thought about the
moral complexity and dilemma of the character?
W: This is a very familiar story for a lot of Palestinians and
Israelis. The beauty of the film is that it raises so many
questions. When I showed it at my house, people didn’t want
to leave and kept on wanting to talk and ask questions. There’s
a lot to process. The one constant is, there isn’t an occupation.
The reality is that the separation wall divides up many
Palestinian towns. A lot of people think it separates Palestine
from Israel. It’s actually a form of military occupation. It does
create an obstacle for everyday life. The moral dilemma – one
thing that is consistent is that Omar is consistent in his love for
Nadia and his cause for Palestine.
Hany has a great way of explaining the three characters. You
have Tarek, the militant who in many war situations you have
a leader and an adventurer. He’s the guy who gives the orders.
Omar is the soldier. He’s the guy that walks into the battle;
he’s the guy who basically goes through everything. Then you
have the opportunist, which is Amjad who benefits from the
war. Every war has these three types of characters. When you
present that and you don’t give them the background why are
they shooting Israeli soldier, you are presenting the reality.
This is happening and people are punished very severely for
killing an Israeli soldier. He takes you down those paths and
where people have to make choices and you can almost put
yourself into that person – what’d I do with that choice?
What are you doing next?
W: My brothers and I set up Zbros. This is our first endeavor.
We are not actively looking for projects. We are just now
trying to get Omar out to the world and do our best job with it.
But I am doing a recurring role on the NBC show Revolution.
I play Martin Shaw, which I’m excited about because it’s non-
Middle Eastern, just a regular old Irish guy. I just did a really
hilarious comedy called Jimmy Vestvood: American Hero with
Maz Jobrani, the Iranian standup comic.
You must be blown away by the reactions to this film? It
has been amazing.
W: I’m so grateful. I’ve worked very hard my whole career
and my wife and kids have put up with me. I’ve done some
great theater work and TV and film that I’m proud of. But this
has been the hardest I’ve ever done. It’s has been the most
rewarding because it’s been paying off critically at least. It’s
just great material. I love working on great materials. To me, it
doesn’t matter that’s Palestinian or Israeli. I knew Hany was a
very talented director. I wanted to work with him and the
material was amazing. That’s how I hope I can approach my
decisions and my career.
July 14, 2014
2014 Faces to Watch
Ryan Coogler / filmmaker
by Minnie Li
Ryan Coogler rose to critical acclaim with his directorial
debut, Fruitvale Station. Its Grand Jury Prize and Audience
Award wins at last year’s Sundance Film Festival were the
first of a trail of recognition from festivals the world over,
including the Prix de l’avenir at Cannes, which recognizes
Coogler as a talent to watch. He, along with his star Michael
B. Jordan, was named by Time as one of the 30 people under
30 changing the world. In December, the 28-year-old
filmmaker took home best breakthrough director at the IFP
Gotham Independent Film Awards.
Fruitvale Station chronicles the last day of 22-year-old Oscar
Grant’s life. A white transit officer shot Grant, who was
African-American, in 2002 on the BART platform. A decade
later, George Zimmerman shot the unarmed young black man,
Trayvon Martin. The film and its timely release suggest that
life in post-racial America has changed little. Coogler is an
Oakland native and has worked as a counselor at a juvenile
hall in San Francisco and as a counselor and security guard in
a home for troubled Bay Area youths. Grant’s story hit home.
Coogler’s next project is Creed, a spin-off of
the Rocky franchise. Sylvester Stallone and Michael B. Jordan
have already signed on.