Jordanian-Palestinian film breaks ground at Cannes festival

AMMAN — The 66th Cannes International Film Festival, which closed on Sunday, marked a milestone for the Jordanian and Palestinian film industries.

Whilst “Omar” by Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad won the Un Certain Regard Special Jury Prize, the joint Jordanian-Gazan short film “Condom Lead” was both the first Palestinian and first Jordanian short film to be officially selected for the Short Film Competition.

The 14-minute short film depicts a controversial side of the repercussions of war. A young married couple, with a young baby, attempt to get intimate amidst the noise of drones and shelling.

“It’s a concept-driven film exposing war from a different perspective, which is an intimate and sexual perspective,” the film's Jordanian director of photography, Zaid Baqaeen, told The Jordan Times.

The film is set in the 2008-2009 war on Gaza and takes its name from the Israeli offensive “Operation Cast Lead” which lasted for 22 days.

“But the film is universal and speaks an international language — it could be any war,” Baqaeen emphasised. “It shows that war deprives people of their most basic right of human intimacy and communication.”

Artistic restrictions in their home Gaza pushed the film’s free-spirited twin directors, Ahmad and Mohammad Abu Nasser, also known as Tarzan and Arab, to adopt Jordan as their new home in October 2012.

“The story of making the film to me is even more interesting than the film itself,” said Baqaeen.

“The way we are trying to bridge these two cultures between Gaza and the emerging film industry in Jordan is something to talk about,” he explained.

Despite the greater degree of artistic freedom in Jordan, the film, which was produced entirely in the Kingdom, demanded “blood, sweat and tears” from the filmmakers. The crew of four shot the film in less than 18 hours, with a budget of $7,000, at night and with a screaming baby on set.

Funding came primarily from the producer, Jordanian Rashid Abdelhamid, and minimal equipment was scrambled together with the help of friends and contacts.

“[The money] was peanuts, but it was real passion, we really wanted to do that film,” Baqaeen said.

“One of the things that made me agree to this film in the first place is that I believe in these two film makers; I think they are talented, creative, they would do anything to express their art… I like their courage,” he added.

Although only privately screened prior to its premiere at Cannes, the film fuelled the rumour mill in both Jordan and Gaza.

“In Gaza, people said this was a porn film, that the directors ran away to Jordan to join the porn industry,” Baqaeen said with a smile on his face.

“The reaction in Jordan and Europe was very different, people liked the way it was conceptualised and executed,” he added.

The concept posed an artistic challenge to the cinematographer and to Philip Hashweh, the sound designer.

The lack of dialogue and the single location meant that “the storytelling depended mainly on the language of the sound design and the language of the visual”, Baqaeen said.

“We had very little time, very limited equipment, and we had to create most of the sound in post-production,” Hashweh told The Jordan Times.

“We researched how the war went on in Gaza, and we used the constant sound of drones flying overhead throughout the film to recreate the sense of war, until right at the end when the war is over — the silence feels awkward to the viewer,” he added.

The success of “Condom Lead” has raised the hopes and expectations of the young Jordanian and Palestinian filmmakers.

“This is not the end for us — now we have a bigger responsibility to always make films that live up to this standard,” Baqaeen and Hashweh, both recent graduates from the Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts in Aqaba, said.

“I think Jordan is promising, although the film industry is still in its baby steps,” Baqaeen added.

“It is still fertile, there are many stories to tell, many amazing locations to be shot in.”

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