The award-winning drama thriller The Reports on Sarah and Saleem ventures into unexplored territory with a tale of an extramarital affair between a Palestinian man from East Jerusalem and an Israeli Jewish woman from West Jerusalem that ignites a dangerous game of deceit. We contacted Director Muayad Alayan, who is also a co-founder and Director of PalCine Productions in Palestine, to get his take on the film’s origins and impact.
BPFF: We’ve heard that this film is based on a true story, or actually two. How did you first encounter these stories and what did they spark for you?
MA: I grew up in East Jerusalem. For the vast majority of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, the first job you would get as a teenager to help support yourself and your family would be on the western side of the city at whatever café, hotel, or bakery was willing to hire you. During those days, when I was working night shifts, I would occasionally witness these secret relationships that were happening in the dark between Palestinians and Israelis. A few months into my work, several people I knew were suddenly arrested following the Israeli army’s invasion of the West Bank.
During that invasion, the Israeli army confiscated a lot of materials and documents from the headquarters of the Palestinian authority and several other Palestinian academic, medical, and civil society organizations. Suddenly the army had lots of information about the lives and secrets of ordinary people. Hundreds of Palestinians, especially in Jerusalem, were arrested following the confiscation of these documents. Some of the arrests were for political activity. But many others were arrested because of their affiliations to Palestinian academic or civil society organizations, or due to name mix-ups or revenge intelligence reports where people with connections were using their political clout to make false claims to retaliate against or extort others. Among the Palestinians arrested at the time were some men who were questioned about the nature of their relationships with some Israeli women and about their affiliation with certain Palestinian security agencies at the same time.
The consequences of these incidents remained with me for a long time. Every day, routine inconsequential things that can happen anywhere in the world can have perilous consequences in a place like Jerusalem. Only in Jerusalem can private marital affairs have disproportionate consequences that destroy people’s lives. Life under occupation in a segregated city in a police-state environment means individual lives can be turned upside down in split second, and makes individuals very vulnerable.
BPFF: What made you decide to locate the story in Jerusalem?
MA: The inspiration for the story came from the reality of life in Jerusalem. In fact, Jerusalem is a main character in the film. The film explores how the political, social, and economic realities in the city affect the lives of the people who live there. You have two communities living in the city, and they are separated not just by physical barriers but also by several virtual walls within the political, socio-economic, and legal structures that keep one group privileged, entitled, and comfortable, and the other impoverished and living in ghettos. The film follows four characters—Saleem and Sarah and their partners, Bisan and David. Jerusalem is the fifth character—always present and influencing the character’s lives.
BPFF: For our American readers who have not been there, can you briefly describe the background history of the divide between East and West Jerusalem and what it’s like to live as a Palestinian on the East side of the city?
MA: In 1948, Jerusalem was divided and the Palestinian inhabitants of West Jerusalem (like my own family) were pushed out of that part of the city and became refugees in their own city or elsewhere. The Western part later became the Israeli part of the city. East Jerusalem remained under Jordanian protection until Israel occupied the remaining parts of historic Palestine in 1967.
West Jerusalem today is the modern, western, privileged part of town. East Jerusalem is the impoverished ghetto-filled part of the city that is constantly suffering from several forms of systematic injustice: land confiscations, home demolitions, expulsion of residents, and many other forms of cultural and socioeconomic pressure whose purpose is to empty the city of its Palestinian inhabitants.
BPFF: What should viewers take away from the story of Sarah and Saleem as far as how the current political situation distorts basic human relationships?
MA: When you make a film, you hope that a lot of the story’s details, both macro and micro, will register in people’s hearts and minds and that they will go home with questions, emotions, and memories and hopefully discuss the film with their friends, colleagues, and family.
I believe that in The Reports on Sarah and Saleem, an important theme is that some of the characters—the female leads—decide to go against what’s expected of them socially and politically in order to do the right thing towards others. In so doing, they give up their privileges in favor of trying to achieve justice for others.
People are always confronted with challenging choices in their everyday lives. Their moral and ethical beliefs are constantly challenged. Often repressive systems, be they political, social, or economic, create a system of haves and have-nots where the privileged are pressured to conform to the will of the system in order to maintain their privileges.
We live in a world where issues of privilege, power, and inequality need to be critically discussed and questioned.
BPFF: The film has been controversial in some arenas. Did that surprise you? What assumptions and images about Jerusalem does it challenge, especially for those who are unfamiliar with Jerusalem?
MA: Jerusalem is a very complex city, and I know that the story might be surprising for people who do not know the city or who have never lived in it or who only hear about Jerusalem in the news. As a filmmaker and as someone who grew up and continues to live in Jerusalem, it is very important for me and all of us to tell stories and not be afraid to dwell in our reality at all levels–especially when we live in a reality that we are not happy about. I don’t think cinema should only explain the news or tell people what they already know. Films are a chance to narrate and try to reflect on and critique our complex realities.
BPFF: Your brother Rami wrote the screenplay and this was not your first collaboration. How did you two begin working together, and what are the strengths you find that you each bring that complement one another and make you a great team?
MA: I began collaborating with Rami on my very first short films. We always develop stories and film ideas together. Rami lives in California and I’m based in Jerusalem. I think that having one of us living within the story world of our films (in Jerusalem) and the other far away has helped us guarantee a global sensibility in our films. We always seek universal human themes that have local specificity and applicability to our homeland.
BPFF: What was the biggest challenge you faced when working on this film?
MA: The challenges when making independent films are endless. In Palestine, you multiply that by 10. Challenges vary from the scarcity of funding opportunities for film and cinema in Palestine, to the difficulty involved in getting the entire Palestinian crew to meet in one place due to the Israeli-imposed restrictions on movement, to the challenge of guaranteeing that the foreign crew members would be allowed access into the country, and on and on.
During the prep for the production, our production team divided the production into three parts: one for areas under the Palestinian authority’s control, one for East Jerusalem, and one for West Jerusalem.
In Bethlehem, even though we had all the permits needed from the Palestinian police and ministries, the Israeli army invaded Beit Jala and arrested me along with the art director and line producer and took us to a near by military base, where they interrogated us for hours and finally released us after confiscating several art props and materials.
In West Jerusalem, it was basically shoot-and-run style, and we had to make sure we always looked like a documentary crew. That meant ensuring we had no more than six to eight people on site; basing all make-up and wardrobe materials in one place but the production base somewhere else, and so on.
In East Jerusalem, while we were filming there, clashes erupted around Al Aqsa mosque after the Israeli government decided to close the mosque and put up metal detectors. There were mass demonstrations and arrests around the city. Our Palestinian crew members who carry Palestinian ID cards were not allowed to be with us in Jerusalem because their permits, which the French Consulate in East Jerusalem had helped us obtain, were canceled.
BPFF: More generally speaking, what are the main challenges that Palestinians who wish to tell their stories through film face along the way?
MA: As challenging as it is for any independent filmmaker anywhere in the world, filmmaking is much, much harder for Palestinian filmmakers. There is the issue of scarcity of funding, travel restrictions and access to and within Palestine, lack of access to high-end equipment and facilities, and the challenging reality of art house and independent cinema distribution.
At the same time, even though there is a lot of money and power that continues to be invested in censoring any voice or any kind of representation or recognition of Palestinian art and culture, we are still creating cinema and we are presenting our films in all major festivals and in theaters around the world.
I believe that the first generation of Palestinian filmmakers fought the fight and succeeded in placing our cinema on the map. They paved the way for my generation and other generations to come. I feel that it is our responsibility now to make sure we sustain our cinema and contribute with all our experience and resources into creating opportunities and infrastructures that would empower any Palestinian talent that emerges to explore and produce.
BPFF: What is your next project? Will you continue to collaborate with Rami?
MA: We are developing a couple of projects. The next one, which is already in the development/financing phase, is a horror and family drama. A Jewish-American family moves into a Palestinian house in West Jerusalem, and then their daughter starts seeing a ghost of a Palestinian girl who lived in the house 70 years ago.
BPFF: You founded and serve as the Director of PalCine Productions, a collective of filmmakers (directors, cinematographers, photographers, editors, music composers, designers, and artists) based in the Jerusalem-Bethlehem area. What services does PalCine offer, and what are some of your current projects?
MA: We are a group of friends who are based between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. We continuously collaborate on our own projects as well as on others. PalCine offers services and assistance to Palestinian as well as international artists and filmmakers who are working on projects in Palestine.
BPFF: Finally, Reports is your fifth film to screen at BPFF—Exiles in Jerusalem (a student short – 2007); Lesh Sabreen? (2009); Sacred Stones (2012); and Love, Theft, and Other Entanglements (2015). What do you think of BPFF and what it has accomplished over the past 12 years?
MA: I think BPFF is one of the most important Palestinian film festivals in the world, especially because of the major academic and artistic institutions that are based in Boston. I think the work that BPFF is doing along with all other Palestinian and Arab film festivals around the world is not only super important in sharing our cinema and our cultural productions with the world, but also in empowering all of us back home in Palestine. BPFF and festivals like it create an opportunity for all of us, particularly for young, up-and-coming talents, to showcase work internationally.
BPFF: Thanks so much for taking time out to answer our questions during this very busy period.
The Reports on Sarah and Saleem screens Friday, October 19, 2018 at 7 pm at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston as the festival’s Opening Film. Both Muayad Alayan and Rami Alayan will be in conversation that night. Reports screens again on Saturday, October 20 at 2 pm, also at the MFA, with Muayad Alayan in conversation.
View the full festival schedule and buy tickets here.