CAIRO: “Daddy,Are you a terrorist?
A simple enough question coming from a 7-year-old boy, one that seems harmless and perhaps even funny – but for the father, the question was destructive. Not just this question, but also the doubtful eyes of his German wife of eight years.
In a post September 11 saga of a German family – an Arab Muslim man and his German wife – cross-culture marriages are brought into the spotlight. Seeds of Doubt, one of 15 films competing for awards in the Cairo International Film Festival, follows the family after the wife learns that her husband is suspected of being a terrorist.
After initial rejection – the police’s suspicions are based on Tariq attending the wedding of one of the people involved in the September 11 terrorist attacks – the wife starts noticing the cultural differences between her and her husband in another light. His relationships with Arabs and other Muslims, his discreet nature and the Arabiclanguage phone calls she cannot understand all translate into doubt. On the other hand, it is not clear whether the husband is actually a terrorist or simply a man caught up in the post September 11 Islam-phobia.
Written by German scriptwriter Florian Hanig and directed by Egyptian-German director Samir Nasr, the film combines European and Arab takes on this issue.
Nasr, currently in Cairo, explained that the story and script were rewritten six times. He first received the film in its initial draft and it took several discussions with the producers and the author for the film to reach its final version.
One substantial change was the increased focus on the cultural clash.
According to Nasr, in one of the drafts, the film highlighted this cultural clash in the household, but he decided to shift the focus to the relationship after doubts were raised. He felt that this was better proof of the consequences of the accumulation of non-addressed differences.
“Suddenly after September 11, discussions about cultural differences were spurred, in similar real-life marriages, Nasr said. Claudia Gladzeijewski, representative of co-producer German TV channel BR, said the problem was that the couple was not talking. She noted that it is the same with countries, hence the political references.
According to Nasr, the film also shows where politics can lead people, referring to the deteriorating relationship between a couple that had once shared a burning passion. But he noted that this passion or attraction often substituted for dialogue, which in turn paved the way for such conflict.
These repressed differences were also reflected in the making of the film.
Nasr said the actors’ off-camera interaction was parallel to the scenes they were shooting. Although only minor differences unrelated to this cultural clash erupted between German actress Silke Bodenbender (Maya, the wife) and Algerian French actor Mehdi Nebbou (Tariq, the husband),Nasr said that perhaps this was a substitute for another cultural related conversation they needed to have.
Seeds of Doubt marks Bodenbender and Nebbou’s first cinematic lead roles. It is also Nasr’s first long feature, although he has won many international prizes for his short films and documentaries. He noted that throughout his 10-year career, he has never faced any form of racism within the German film industry,”until this film.
Being a TV film, producers did not face any problems concerning distribution, but Nasr’s several attempts to show the movie in four German film festivals failed. “Maybe I made a statement that annoyed some people, he added.
Unlike Seeds of Doubt, Nasr’s previous films did not focus on Arab-related issues per se – being a German-Egyptian, he said both cultures have influenced him. Thus, there are many issues he has wanted to cover in his films. He also preferred not to be typecast as a director who only makes movies about Arab concerns and problems, adding that promotional films that lack sincerity don’t deliver the message.
But when he saw the script, Nasr says,he knew he had to direct it. For him, the film did not only focus on the fears and doubts surrounding Arabs after September 11, but it also highlighted several issues that concern the German society as a whole; including the destructive fear of losing a job.
