‘Al Jidar’ (The Wall) shows the enterprising quartet attempting to convince rock star Roger Waters to play a concert in their ramshackle neighbourhood.
Waters, singer and songwriter with legendary group Pink Floyd, is a tireless supporter of Palestinian rights, but that fact is coincidental; director Mira Sidawi, a fellow refugee who grew up in the nearby Burj Barajneh Camp, came up with the idea after showing Pink Floyd film ‘The Wall’ in a makeshift cinema club she runs in Shatila.
‘The Wall’, in which a bereaved musician constructs a metaphorical and sometimes physical wall to shut out the world, mesmerised its young Shatila audience.
“There’s this whole stereotype around the refugee camps in Lebanon – that they’re poor, with no future, where people fight all the time. Camp residents are pushing against these stereotypes, so I had the idea of trying to get Pink Floyd to come,” says Sidawi, 34.
Filmed over two years, ‘Al Jidar’ centres around four Shatila residents, who themselves are making a film about their efforts to reach Waters after completing a video production course with an international non-profit. A drama-documentary, Al Jidar’s main protagonists relive certain scenes that happened before Mira began filming.
“They like to shoot videos and want to say something to the world, but can’t find a way, so I decided to make this film with them,” says Sidawi, who holds a theatre diploma and is also an actress and writer. “It began as a film about inviting a rock star to a refugee camp and became a film about how you can be you and survive in the camp. How can you challenge yourself? How can you make the world hear you? Living in such conditions isn’t easy. Staying positive takes a lot out of you.”
Omar, 19, fled along with his family from Damascus’s Yarmouk refugee camp. He is sensitive and quiet but loves to sing and act, while Rayan, 22, wears a headscarf and rides a motorcycle. Having grown up in Shatila – which was established in 1949 and is home to around 10,000 registered refugees – Rayan is more comfortable and confident living in the camp and is a natural leader.
Samih, 18, is also from Yarmouk, having escaped the Syrian civil war. Shy and thoughtful, he was forced to quit his studies and lost hope when he arrived in Shatila. The video workshop gave him renewed optimism for the future. Malak, 22, looks young for her age. She has a deep sadness after being bereaved in the Syrian war, but disguises this with laughter.
REACHING ROGER WATERS
“All four of them have different dimensions and depths, but all want to create something special,” says Sidawi. “Making this film made me realise the real wall is also inside of us. The struggles in The Wall are similar to what we face.”
A rough cut of the 30-minute film is finished but requires further editing and should be completed by late January in order to qualify for various competitions. The filmmakers are still trying to reach Roger Waters, who is currently on a world tour.
“This film is great even without Roger Waters. There’s this weird irony about having him, because the idea is that their story, dreams, vision and artistry should be as important as a celebrity,” explains producer Amie Williams. “Will it take a celebrity to come to the camp to get the world’s recognition of the situation there?”
She has helped raise around $22,000 to finance the film and needs to find another $10,000-15,000 to pay crew and fund its distribution.
Having met Sidawi on a trip to Shatila, Williams believes the director has a huge future ahead of her.
“Mira is a really big talent. There’s a lot more that she has to say,” says Williams. “I’m always struck at how when you go into places with scant resources for arts you find an explosion of expression. There’s very lively theatre, music and street art without any kind of funding. There’s all this creative energy flowing out of people who have nothing.”
When filming for ‘Al Jidar’ began, the youngest of the four fledgling filmmakers was just 16 and docu-drama shows the transition from childhood to young adult.
“As you get older – as they have done during the making of the film – things get more difficult as you’re faced with the reality of your life,” concludes Williams. “[So] as we grow older, how do we maintain our hopes and dreams?”