Zeina Durra, filmmaker

Where did the idea for The Imperialists... come from?

It’s something I’ve been digesting my entire life. But ultimately it was born out of 9/11. I’d just finished the second year of my Master’s in film at NYU. It was a really heightened, scary period and there were these crazy round-ups. My friends got out who needed to get out, young Saudi men in their late 20s and early 30s. But if you read human rights reports, you know it was a dark time. My family really wanted me to come home but I stayed. I wanted to explore what was happening.

Did your script take long to develop?

My thesis film was a short on similar themes. Then I submitted five pages to the Berlin Film Festival clinic, who asked for more. By February 2006, I had my full script and it just was a matter of honing it. If you’re writing from a perspective that most people haven’t seen before, you have to be protective. It’s not about not taking advice. But if I had listened to all the people who told me how to make my film, it would have been a very different film, told from a very white male perspective.

Is the main character, Asya, a version of you?

I used to say no but it’s just so obvious. She even wears my bracelets! Like Asya, I want justice for the Middle East and peace, and at the same time, I’m worried about loved ones that live there. [Actress] Elodie Bouchez did a really good job. She doesn’t have an ego at all. After every take, she would say, “Is that what you wanted?” And she’d get so excited when she knew she’d got it right.

Where did you get your film education?

My mother was a newsreader. My dad ran a Middle Eastern TV network – I made my first film with him when I was 10. But it was my mother who dragged me to the cinema. Then I discovered the French New Wave and I just related to its language way more than to other stuff I was seeing at the time. This emphasis on ABC plot and leaving people satisfied – you should leave them questioning.

Your producer and DP are both women. Did you intentionally pick a mainly female team?

I don’t really want to differentiate between men and women. But everyone has moments of trying to work things out, especially on a film, and I find some men jump on a woman trying to work something out as a woman not knowing what she’s doing. I don’t want that attitude on my set. I choose to work with smart women (and men) who understand the language I’m trying to use.

Which is more significant to your work – your gender or your ethnicity?

I’m wary of being pigeonholed. I am a director and I happen to be a woman. But because we’re a minority in the industry, we do need a platform. Things like Birds Eye View provide that. I don’t get into Middle Eastern festivals because they don’t think I’m Arab enough. In a way, that’s sad. I’d love them to see my film. It’s very funny. But I’m not doing stories about a guy losing his kebab in a market and walking through a desert with his father. I’m a feminist and I’m proud to be Middle Eastern. But you make better work when you look at it as art and work out what you want to say that way.

What was the biggest challenge of getting your film made?

Funding sucks. It took the best part of two years to get. You need to convince people you’re going to pull off your film but the people with the money are looking for formulas. You have to have so much self-belief. But anyone who thinks they can direct a film has that naturally. So go out there and sell it. Why do you want to make this film? After Sundance, I had people come up and say, “If I’d known it was going to be like that, I would have funded it.” Now they want to see my next script.

The Birds Eye View Film Festival runs from 8 to 17 March at BFI Southbank, ICA and Southbank Centre, London. For more information about Zeina’s film, visit http://theimperialistsarestillalive.com.

Ideas Fund Shorts, our £5,000 funding prize for young filmmakers, is open until 28 March.