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Amreeka

Coverage by Nobuhiro Hosoki

 

Story : Muna (Nisreen Faour), a divorced Palestinian woman, leaves the West Bank with Fadi (Melkar Muallem), her teenaged sun, to the city of Illinois. Both mother and son hope to start a new life in America but go through a difficult transition. Fadi must adapt to the hallways and classrooms of his new high school. And Muna must keep up with the pace cooking hamburgers at a local White Castle.

 

Interview with Writer and Director, Cherien Dabis

Q: Which actually is a good segue into your story because Ohio is just so much America and I can just imagine…Did you feel as alienated as they were when you were there in Ohio and places like that?
 
(Cherien Dabis): Oh yeah, absolutely. I sort of divide my life into pre-1991 and post-1991, and pre-1991 there was definitely a sense of alienation. But I was young and just wanted to fit in and was kind of rebellious, sort of like Salma in the movie. Then 1991 hit and my father lost a lot of his patients and we got death threats and some of the things that happened in the movie actually happened in real life, and then in real life things actually got worse; they were even more intense than in the film. And after that it was major alienation; really realizing that not only do you not belong but you’re not welcome. And that was a big shift. That was sobering.

Q: In Cincinnati I remember there on McCormick or whatever there was that one Middle Eastern restaurant where you could get falafel, and no where else could you get falafel. That’s a very interesting idea; the hamburger falafel. Did you come up with that idea?
 
(Cherien Dabis): I hope that White Castle does it; I think they should start a falafel burger named after Muna. Muna’s Falafel Burger.
 
Q: That’s a good idea though.
 
(Cherien Dabis): The only thing is, I’m not sure how many vegetarians eat at White Castle. It’s a way that they could attract vegetarians, right?
 
Q: But you were significantly young enough that the only way your experience of the Middle East was defined was really by…when did you come to the states?
 
(Cherien Dabis): I was born in the states – I was the first of my family born in the states – but we went back to Jordan every summer. So while I grew up in Ohio we spent three months every summer in Jordan.
 
Q: And you thus learned Arabic.
 
(Cherien Dabis): Yeah, I mean I learned Arabic and English at the same time; we spoke Arabic at home and yeah, the summer trips definitely helped to keep the fluency.
 
Q: But it must have made the experience in Ohio even weirder.
 
(Cherien Dabis): Oh yes; it was like moving to a new town every year when I’d come back for the fall year.
 
Q: How did you approach Hiam Abbass to be in this film? She’s the draw for the film.
 
(Cherien Dabis): Hiam was someone whose work I was really familiar with, so when I was writing the script I had her in mind because I just really felt like she could embody the feisty, fiery spirit of the character of Raghda. And so back in 2007 I made a short film that was on the festival circuit and was doing relatively well; it got into the Berlin festival, and I found out that Hiam was going to be a jury member on that festival. So I was able to figure out how to get the script to her and much to my surprise she read it, which was amazing, and got back to me, and we ended up meeting at the film festival. We had an amazing three hour long meeting and she immediately committed herself to the project; she just loved it.
 
Q: She’s really good that way; she’s done some pretty interesting, broad range of films. I’ve interviewed her several times actually and so I like her.
 
(Cherien Dabis): Yeah, she’s great.
 
Q: She kind of has an interesting also sort or weird, I wouldn’t call it love and hate, but on the one hand there’s the Hiam that’s the Palestinian and on the other hand there’s Hiam the Persian. And of course Israel’s been really good to her because she’s gotten her career because of Israel and so she’s kind of caught in the middle. How do you feel about it? I mean Israel gives a lot of the Palestinian actors work and a lot of the Israeli filmmaking community helps support a lot of the Palestinian actors in giving them the opportunity to make some of their films. Do you have any feelings about their films or the films that you’ve seen?
 
(Cherien Dabis): Their films in general?
 
Q: Well oddly enough Israeli filmmakers tend to take left-of-center point of views, so they’ve actually in many ways have often helped support the cause.
 
(Cherien Dabis): Right. Well I’m a fan of the work of Eran Riklis, for example, who did The Syrian Bride and Lemon Tree. I think that he’s a very interesting filmmaker who is writing about some very important topics, or making movies about some very important topics I should say, because he works with a writer. I think that there are some interesting Israeli filmmakers who aren’t at all touching the topic who are still making good films, and then there are definitely the Palestinian filmmakers within Israel proper who are making movies like Paradise Now and The Time that Remains and who accept support from the Israeli government and why shouldn’t they? They pay Israeli government taxis so I think that it’s rightfully theirs to take and those stories are really important, they need to be told.
 
Q: In the film when they initially go to school they’re concerned about how they dress and everything. In your experience would it be the same way? You have to dress in certain clothes to try to fit in. Did you feel the same way when you used to live in Ohio?
 
(Cherien Dabis): Yeah, absolutely. There was definitely that peer pressure to look a certain way, to dress in that sort of all-American, Midwestern way in order to fit in, for sure.
 
Q: Your parents were far less traditional and much more somewhat Americanized. Where were they at at the time?
 
(Cherien Dabis): Well how do you define traditional?
 
Q: Well I mean they weren’t wearing hijab.
 
(Cherien Dabis): But my family’s Christian.
 
Q: Oh right, you mentioned that. Well even there, how Christian were they?
 
(Cherien Dabis): They actually weren’t that religious but I would say they were somewhat traditional in a way in which they very much abided by Arab cultural standards and traditions. I mean for example, it was a strict household that we grew up in. I’m one of 5 daughters and it was quite the strict household. We were supposed to speak Arabic at home – we were all quite rebellious – but we were supposed to speak Arabic at home, we were never allowed to spend the night at other people’s houses, sleepovers were not allowed. Curfews and no dating and all that.
 
Q: So did you rebel against that? That’s how you relate to Americans so you were trying to fit in.
 
(Cherien Dabis): Well I mean the first generation perspective is very interesting because you’re defending the Americans to your Arab parents and you’re defending the Arabs to your American peers and you’re constantly having to negotiate between the two. And you have to explain things like the prom to your parents and then you have to explain things like metlube, like the name of an Arabic food that your friends can’t pronounce and you have to explain what’s in it. So it’s like all these layers of explanation of what’s going on and who the other is, and it’s kind of a dilemma actually to be caught between that.
 
Q: Because Jordan is primarily Muslim, how did you find yourself relating to the Muslim community? Both in America and in Jordan?
 
(Cherien Dabis): Well there’s a lot of segregation in a place like Jordan with regard to the Muslims and the Christians. And there’s definitely been conflict, absolutely. I mean you have your Christians and then you have your moderate Muslims, and there’s definitely more interaction between those two groups. And then you have your mainstream population that practices mainstream Islam and then the extremists beyond that. And there are definitely various layers of conflict in there; I’ve had some interesting experiences and my parents have had even more interesting experiences and conflicts.
 
 
Q: So you must want to stand up and scream half the time.
 
(Cherien Dabis): Well, it’s very interesting; I definitely grew up with this sense of I don’t belong anywhere; I am sort of my own culture. And when I found other first generation immigrants I realized actually, it’s really true. Being caught in between these two worlds does sort of lend itself to having your own experience and it’s unique and it’s different and it’s something that tortured me for a long time because I didn’t have a sense of identity, I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t feel American enough for the Americans, I didn’t feel Arab enough for the Arabs.

And I was neither one wholly but both in part so it was a very confusing thing, and it really plagued me throughout my adolescence and into early adulthood, and I think at a certain point I realized it doesn’t matter, I am who I am. And I’m really lucky to have been given this sense of perspective and to have these two really rich experiences and cultures to draw from. And I think actually making this movie in some ways was a meditation on cultural identity for me, and was very therapeutic in more ways than one.
 
Q: Do you think it would have made a difference if you had moved to a city where there’s more diversity?
 
(Cherien Dabis): For sure. I think it would have made a difference, definitely. I think in a small town there’s no anonymity, there’s no possibility for anonymity; everyone knows who you are, everyone knows your business. And in a big city we probably could have found a community, we might not have felt as isolated. We could have been anonymous when it came to non-Arabs and going to school and all of that. So yeah, I think it would have been a completely different experience.
 
Q: Did your parents ever think about living there when they initially moved to America?
 
(Cherien Dabis): No, my father ended up in Omaha, Nebraska, which is where I was born.
 
Q: What does he do?
 
(Cherien Dabis): He’s a doctor. And he got a residency in Omaha, which is why my parents ended up in the Midwest, and he was recruited to this small town in Ohio. And my dad comes from a village in Palestine; the quiet life was attractive to him and this small town had like a zero crime rate and was quaint and cute and they thought it was sweet and a good place to raise kids. They didn’t take into account that it had like zero culture.
 
Q: Did it affect them as much to be there as it affected you? Because they weren’t as quick to assimilate were they?
 
(Cherien Dabis): My mother never assimilated; my mother was a homesick immigrant who cried for fifteen years, very much like Raghda. My dad was forced to assimilate because he was working, and I think he definitely had an easier time with it. But I think 1991 was a big wakeup call. I think watching the news media for twenty five years in the US was maddening. I think they saw many things that they didn’t expect to see and were treated in ways that they didn’t necessarily expect.
 
Q: When you made the film, did you have clearly in mind the arc that was there? Was that always the arc or did that evolve? What was the most difficult aspect of being in the film? Was it just reliving sort of things emotionally? Was it just catching the experience right, making it authentic? So there are three questions there.
 
(Cherien Dabis): Okay, let’s take them one at a time. So the first one was about the larger story arc. I think that that came over time; I think that I knew certain things going into it but I definitely think that it probably came off as much more episodic at first and that over the years of developing it I found the through-line, and I found that characters arcs, and I found the right ways in which to interweave those arcs into the larger story arc. And I think that that shape really came through the rewriting process and a lot of through the development labs that I did from Sundance to Film Independent and all of the feedback that I got was tremendously helpful.
 
Q: And what was the most difficult part of making the film? It could have been for you emotionally…
 
(Cherien Dabis): I think the most difficult part of making the film was finding the financing, and I would say casting the movie as well. I think I wanted to put a gun to my head because I was traveling so much for like eight months looking for this cast all over the world. And I was so exhausted before we even went into pre-production that I was like, “I think this is not good.”
 
Q: It’s interesting how you found the main character; she embodies the whole experience. How did you cast her?
 
(Cherien Dabis): Well she was someone I had found in Haifa, actually. I mean when I say I was all over the place, I was all over the US, all over Canada, France, the Middle East. And I did a casting session in Haifa and she came, and she’s a relatively well known theater actress there and she had done four films by a Palestinian director named Ali Nassar, but Amreeka was her first English language part and first international role. And I mean, she came into the casting session with her two sons and it was funny because you notice right away when someone walks into the room, you start observing from the moment they walk into the room, and it was really the interaction between her sons that I think for me made me really pay attention and made me really think like, huh, she’s interesting, she really might be the Muna.

And so she sat down to read and read the scene where Mr. Novaski is eating burgers at the White Castle and she starts giggling afterwards and it was that moment that I fell in love with her. And I turned to her boys who were sitting in the auditorium watching the audition and I was like, “What’d you guys think?” and they were like, “That sucked.” And it was just such a sweet moment and she just started to laugh and she was pretend cursing at them and it was just a really sweet moment. I liked that they spoke to her as if she were their equal; it was something that I really wanted for the relationship between Muna and Fadi. In addition to the fact that she was really great in the audition, I liked being able to see that part of her life.
 
Q: There are many different Arab accents so when you were casting was it important for you to get people who had similar experiences, that had similar accents as a cast?
 
(Cherien Dabis): Yeah I mean I did widen the search; when I was casting I kept it within the Levant region of the Middle East because the dialects are most similar, so Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, and Israel. It was important to me but I was willing to keep an open mind and have someone work with a dialect coach if that was necessary, but it was a huge bonus that I found people with Palestinian dialect Arabic.
 
Q: Now, in terms of audiences that you’ve had see this obviously you’ve had a number of different audiences see this film, and now you’ve been able to collect a lot of different reactions. Have there been different reactions from people that are Middle Eastern, people that are Jewish, people that are from the Midwest? Were people saying that they got it?
 
(Cherien Dabis): The reactions were kind of blowing me away actually; they’ve been really overwhelmingly positive. From the Jewish audience members to the Arab-American audience members to the Arab audience members to the American, form Sundance to France to New York, it’s been thus-far pretty amazing. The movie hasn’t opened yet in the US so I can’t tell you what the reaction’s been like in Houston or other territories, but in the places that it has screened, or opened…

Q: It opens people’s eyes so how are they reacting? Do they come to you and say, “I didn’t realize this”?
 
(Cherien Dabis): There were a lot of people that were very surprised that that happened, that that could happen, that that could happen in the US. So yeah, there is that element of people’s eyes really being opened. I’ve been surprised by the number of Jewish-Americans that have come to me really just loving the movie and loving the characters and really just sympathizing so much.

It’s interesting, in France I’ve had people come up to me and say, “We have an Arab problem too,” and that’s interesting because it’s people translating the story into their own country and seeing that it’s relevant there as well and taking a look at like, “Oh, we actually have this issue here as well, this immigrant issue.” Arab-Americans tell me that they walk out of the theater feeling so proud to be Arab, and that’s amazing. So it’s sort of run the gamut of those kinds of reactions.
 
Q: How did you manage with your television work? Would you want to go back to tv or do you want to focus on film more?
 
(Cherien Dabis): Yeah, I want to focus on film more right now.

Q: What about TV? Are you still working on that right now?
 
(Cherien Dabis): No, The L Word is finished, actually. It went to six seasons and it’s no longer on the air.
 
Q: Had you always had the ending in mind? Did you think it was going to turn that way? Was it something that came out of the process or did you have any alternatives to it?
 
(Cherien Dabis): No, I think it came out of the process; I always knew the way I wanted the ending to feel, but it was figuring out specifically how I was going to communicate that emotion that kept shifting and changing. I definitely considered different endings; there were the happy endings that some people proposed to me, like Muna opens her own restaurant and starts making falafel burgers, which I was not interested in tying things up and making that a neat bow.

There was the ending where Muna became a substitute teacher at the high school, or the ending where the bank employee gives her a job as a bank teller. And again, all of that just seemed too easy and too convenient and I didn’t want to end it that neatly, I wanted it to be a little more open ended but still feel like there was a sense of closure. So I opted for the more subtle ending.
 
Q: Are you going to continue making films that deal with this experience or are you now going to go screaming the other way?
 
(Cherien Dabis): I’m definitely not going to go screaming the other way, that’s not my style. But I think I’ll probably be dealing with some of the same themes but looking to do so in a different way; always going to try and surprise you.
 
Q: One last question; after having made this movie, and you think about you as how you rebelled then, with everything in mind, would you rebel more if you knew now who you are then, would you be more rebellious? Because I have had my friends who from this experience were really rebellious and got into drugs…
 
(Cherien Dabis): No, I would have rebelled less against my parents, more against society.

End.