Speaker 1: H oh is Bolt.
Speaker 2: It's show tied. People say, good money to see this movie.
Speaker 3: When they go out to a theater, they want cold sodas,
Speaker 3: hot popcorn, and no monsters.
Speaker 1: In the Protection Booth, everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring. Got
Speaker 1: it off?
Speaker 3: No, no not now you don't know money?
Speaker 2: I'm on, have you nehe.
Speaker 1: And this has to be Hanley quill you.
Speaker 2: She got to add.
Speaker 4: Hey, folks, welcome to a special episode of the Projection Booth.
Speaker 4: I'm your host Mike White. On this episode, I'm talking
Speaker 4: with magde Alan Sorry, all about his new film The Vile.
Speaker 4: It's currently playing festivals, including the Fantastic Fest. If you
Speaker 4: are down in Austin, definitely check it out. Otherwise, keep
Speaker 4: your eyes open for The Vile twenty twenty five coming
Speaker 4: to a festival or theater hopefully near you. I would
Speaker 4: love to hear a little bit more about you and
Speaker 4: how you decided to get into filmmaking.
Speaker 1: When I was in high school, I graduated, I went
Speaker 1: to Long Beach. I was supposed to study business being
Speaker 1: an Arab kid in early two thousands, that's what's expected
Speaker 1: from you. But then I just fell into music. That's
Speaker 1: how it actually actually started just music production, and then
Speaker 1: from there it just evolved for me coming back and
Speaker 1: then going to music college and then coming back there
Speaker 1: was nothing for me to do other than be a
Speaker 1: DJ and get paid one thousand dollars for the rest
Speaker 1: of my life. But I was lucky at that time.
Speaker 1: The Capsole will be where I'm from started investing in
Speaker 1: entertainment and one of the companies that they opened up
Speaker 1: was Imagination, and so I started interning there. That was
Speaker 1: my I still love the art, of course, I love music,
Speaker 1: and that was an easy transition for me to get
Speaker 1: into film. And then from there just stody worked my
Speaker 1: way up the ladder. I was an intern on a
Speaker 1: Toby Hooper movie that was shot here and I was
Speaker 1: actually his driver for a month, and then did themed warehouses,
Speaker 1: equipment houses, and then slowly built my way up. Did
Speaker 1: my first short film and Imagination could put me as
Speaker 1: a junior executive, and then from there I pitched my
Speaker 1: first film which was called Rat the Cage, a case
Speaker 1: Sinzan and Arabic, which was in the Fantastic Fest almost
Speaker 1: ten years ago. And then from there just I went
Speaker 1: on to making my second phone Now, which is which
Speaker 1: took ten years apart, but I was doing TV series
Speaker 1: in the middle.
Speaker 4: Tell me about Radle of the Cage. Where did you
Speaker 4: actually shoot that?
Speaker 1: We shot that in Jordan. Was a one location set built.
Speaker 1: It was a blacklist script by two brilliant writer writers,
Speaker 1: Ruckus and name Sky, which was a Southern American film.
Speaker 1: But when I read it, it was all it's a
Speaker 1: pure genre film contained in one location. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: this is a perfect I was twenty five twenty six
Speaker 1: at the time. I'm like, all right, if someone going
Speaker 1: to roll with the dice on me, it must be
Speaker 1: a smaller film. And ID pictures to majation and we
Speaker 1: got in and then we shot her in Jordan, and yeah,
Speaker 1: we finished up there. The production of it was there,
Speaker 1: and then the post production of it was here in Dubai.
Speaker 1: Ral Kid was one of the first few films actually
Speaker 1: might have been one of the first few drama films
Speaker 1: that came out from the region. And not only in
Speaker 1: the AE, but now since we've seen a lot of
Speaker 1: productions coming in from dark scale Hollywood productions like June,
Speaker 1: but also at the same time, you're seeing a lot
Speaker 1: of independent filmmakers here making arac movies, whether it's in
Speaker 1: different genres. There's horror film, another horror film coming out
Speaker 1: from the AE this year, and then there's another dar
Speaker 1: scale drama, local drama, regional drama that's coming out. So
Speaker 1: it's nice to see there's multiple films coming out. And
Speaker 1: back in the days when they roll of the Cage,
Speaker 1: it was one movie year or two movies a year
Speaker 1: maybe where are almost five six movies every quarter, So
Speaker 1: it's nice to see it slowly growing. But yeah, that's exciting,
Speaker 1: especially with the Saudi market now opening up because we
Speaker 1: are from the same age and we consume the same stuff.
Speaker 1: That's a monster market to be that we all hope
Speaker 1: that will sustain us as independent or local filmmakers.
Speaker 4: I'll say, do I remember Ry too that you've produced
Speaker 4: a lot of stuff?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, what does that like to be a producer rather
Speaker 4: than just directing?
Speaker 1: See, directing by itself is different than that being a
Speaker 1: director writer, which I've learned in this film because I
Speaker 1: was the director for h on the Cage. I found
Speaker 1: the script, but as such I didn't I wasn't involved
Speaker 1: in writing the script. But it's also very different when
Speaker 1: you're a producer on a film. I think I think
Speaker 1: it's great because to be frank it's great to see
Speaker 1: other people doing mistakes. That's part of it. And yeah,
Speaker 1: then you being in the back kind of trying to
Speaker 1: save it or even guiding them and making their vision
Speaker 1: come to life without enforcing any And that's one thing
Speaker 1: that I did as a producer is making sure that
Speaker 1: I never interfere as a director. That director had is
Speaker 1: waved far away from the set. But it's nice work
Speaker 1: with other directors and see how their process is, whether
Speaker 1: with the things I agree with or don't agree with.
Speaker 1: I've learned both ways. So it's always great to be
Speaker 1: a producer on set. But I do enjoy directing way
Speaker 1: more than producing, and say, to be very frankly, and
Speaker 1: I actually do enjoy directing. Of course, I love developing scripts.
Speaker 1: But this is what I found with the Vow that
Speaker 1: was a bit tough is when because I wrote it
Speaker 1: and directed it, it was a bit it was just
Speaker 1: so person It's a story that comes from my community
Speaker 1: and it came from me growing up and things. I
Speaker 1: had this story, I had it in my head. I
Speaker 1: just didn't know how to tackle it or the subject
Speaker 1: matter for fifteen twelve years, So it was tougher for
Speaker 1: me to direct this one, just because it felt like
Speaker 1: closer to home. I might not be co writing it.
Speaker 1: I might give it to very tad to write it,
Speaker 1: to write it.
Speaker 4: And I'll just direct it. So it sounds like this
Speaker 4: one took a long time to just state. Was there
Speaker 4: a moment where finally like slipped and you go, ah,
Speaker 4: this is the key to this movie?
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, Yeah. It was just a slow process because
Speaker 1: I knew I wanted to talk about the subject matter,
Speaker 1: but also knew I wanted to talk about it in
Speaker 1: a fun way where prison would watch it, would actually
Speaker 1: enjoy it and not fall into the drama too much,
Speaker 1: but yet respect that the subject matter, which is about
Speaker 1: polygamy and about multi marriages. For me, it was an
Speaker 1: instance where there was a friend that and we were
Speaker 1: locked in somewhere and he was he wanted to come out,
Speaker 1: and he was so excited for the weekend. And then
Speaker 1: I found out that she's Mega's second wife. And this
Speaker 1: stage age is very different than my father's generation or
Speaker 1: my grandfather's generation, where he is really pushing the women's empowerment,
Speaker 1: where we have women in high position in government and
Speaker 1: in private sectors, and so it's not as I'd say,
Speaker 1: as as common as it used to be. But young
Speaker 1: guy just was going to do it. And it was
Speaker 1: in fact that we're a group of guys and we're
Speaker 1: a bit surprised, but I think we're more surprised into
Speaker 1: the fact that he was doing good and not then
Speaker 1: the first wife doesn't know about it, she has no
Speaker 1: true I think that that brought me up to a question.
Speaker 1: I'm like, how would how a father of two daughters.
Speaker 1: I'm like, how would I how would my daughters feel?
Speaker 1: And how would I feel? How would my wife feel?
Speaker 1: And I started questioning that and that that really pushed
Speaker 1: me in, propelled me. And even though I had it,
Speaker 1: I've seen in my community ten fifteen years, I think
Speaker 1: that instance and you know, I'm like, Okay, this is
Speaker 1: where what my what my angle is for this movie
Speaker 1: and what I would just buy. But now looking at it,
Speaker 1: I'm like, it just makes total sense. That's how we
Speaker 1: want to do it. It's really take us, let the character,
Speaker 1: let the money or here, take us on a journey
Speaker 1: of what she would feel like going through this process
Speaker 1: step by step and how it comes from the beginning
Speaker 1: into that. And that kind of spurred me into that
Speaker 1: conversation spurred me into doing massive research and getting people.
Speaker 1: Even though I've grown around it, I just wanted to
Speaker 1: get I want to get the deep cuts essay of
Speaker 1: the subject matter. And then and through the research, it
Speaker 1: just kind of started getting clear and clearer of what
Speaker 1: this movie should be.
Speaker 4: Did you run and past any women and say does
Speaker 4: this ring true?
Speaker 1: Of course, there's there's lines that were taken from my
Speaker 1: family household and taken from other fabrics. And also my
Speaker 1: actress at Badur is a large part of i'd say,
Speaker 1: rewriting it as we're shooting it, and because she was
Speaker 1: very close to the subject matter, so I really leaned
Speaker 1: onto her and a lot of times and heard her voice.
Speaker 1: Whether I like it or not, I just wanted for
Speaker 1: me was chasing honesty and chasing the truthfulness. And then
Speaker 1: of course there is the horror. That's the fun part
Speaker 1: of it. But I still wanted to be true to
Speaker 1: the voice of the women of the region that go
Speaker 1: through this And yeah, that was technician.
Speaker 4: Tell me a little bit about your co writer.
Speaker 1: So Johnny is another writer, brilliant writer who I met
Speaker 1: from the Blacklist. There was a script I read I
Speaker 1: might have a blackness reader and I love it. My
Speaker 1: first cript came from the Blacklist website and I met Johnny,
Speaker 1: and I met a lot of tanted writers from around
Speaker 1: the world on the Blacklist. So Johnny was one of
Speaker 1: the really talented writers I've met, and we've developed a
Speaker 1: few projects before this one. And then me and him
Speaker 1: had the conversation. It wasn't easy. I think he was,
Speaker 1: which rightfully, he come from Canada and he's maybe the
Speaker 1: subject matter is not the one that should welve into
Speaker 1: with you, and maybe you need a local writer. But
Speaker 1: my issue was is I love the way he really
Speaker 1: thought of structuring the scripts and how he writes. I
Speaker 1: think we had a great relationship. I'm like, all that
Speaker 1: the cultural stuff and the stuff that comes will come
Speaker 1: from me, and I don't shoo to worry anything about that,
Speaker 1: but I need your help with how we structure the
Speaker 1: horror and how we bring it in and how we
Speaker 1: bring it out. And so, yeah, he was a great
Speaker 1: companion and it was a great partner to have on
Speaker 1: the project.
Speaker 4: Can you tell me how the cast came together?
Speaker 1: Essentially, we had a set date to shoot the movie,
Speaker 1: but then the last second we could which is couldn't
Speaker 1: I couldn't find the right money or the right hero,
Speaker 1: and I really wanted someone that really understands this, whether
Speaker 1: really when whether she went through it, or she had
Speaker 1: family members and someone really close to home, close to
Speaker 1: her home that went through it. And the cinemasine isn't big,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't understand. But what we have here in the
Speaker 1: OE is a big theater movement and community. So it
Speaker 1: was just by accident me going to the charge Um
Speaker 1: Theater Festival and the first show that came on, which
Speaker 1: I really loved, was her being the hero of it.
Speaker 1: I still remember this, and I was watching it and
Speaker 1: I ended up crying, and then I was just like
Speaker 1: I was tearing up. I'm like, the story was very beautiful,
Speaker 1: the stage director was incredible, the acting work, everyone did
Speaker 1: an incredible job. But she just she has had this
Speaker 1: energy in her and that I just kind of I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, because we've already casted everyone else but her,
Speaker 1: so I had to recast everyone and put her in
Speaker 1: the center point. And of course, after our first meeting,
Speaker 1: me sitting other than her being very extremely talented, mes
Speaker 1: sitting with her and her telling me what she went
Speaker 1: through from her family members and what she knows about
Speaker 1: this subject matter. I knew she was the right person,
Speaker 1: and so therefore we recasted everyone so we could have
Speaker 1: her lead the project. Why the recasting, it didn't fit
Speaker 1: the way she was, her age group, who she was
Speaker 1: as a woman, her energy for me, that just didn't
Speaker 1: It isn't well with the other castle we had already
Speaker 1: because we had someone to play the money in the
Speaker 1: beginning that didn't work out. She pulled out, so therefore
Speaker 1: I was stuck with everyone else but the lead. But
Speaker 1: then when a fond lead, that's everything. It's like a
Speaker 1: puzzle that everything followed in a striz's place, so we
Speaker 1: had to Unfortunately, they were very talented and extreme tatle
Speaker 1: but they just didn't fit the family that I saw
Speaker 1: in my head with the door or the actress that
Speaker 1: plays some money.
Speaker 4: Did you still make your shoot date?
Speaker 1: We ended up pushing it for two months three months
Speaker 1: to just prep just to get her because they actually
Speaker 1: had the theater and then so we just put for
Speaker 1: two three months. So almost did you actually shoot this?
Speaker 1: We shot this in twenty twenty three. Around the end
Speaker 1: of August, we started shooting again and then we went
Speaker 1: till September and then yeah, and then editing since no editing.
Speaker 1: Process of editing, which was one of my most was
Speaker 1: maha moment in this movie where for right of the caid,
Speaker 1: I knew exact how I'm shooting the film. I know
Speaker 1: exactly how'm I'm cutting this movie right. I know when
Speaker 1: I'm pretty much six seven months, I was done with
Speaker 1: editing and we were in the online. I think with
Speaker 1: this one it was a bit different that I tried
Speaker 1: doing that and I realized smack me back in the face.
Speaker 1: I was like, all right, this movie's not speaking to me.
Speaker 1: And I realized that going with that attitude would be
Speaker 1: the worst thing to do with this kind of movie.
Speaker 1: And that's what I've learned. And I spoke to a
Speaker 1: very close director friend of mine from Jordan, Najiabunoma and
Speaker 1: who did the incredible movie called Vieb and he advised me,
Speaker 1: He's like, listen, you are trying fight of taking it
Speaker 1: from a two hour movie, let's say to an hour
Speaker 1: and forty five minutes, and then there's something in the
Speaker 1: middle is not working right, and you're trying to cut
Speaker 1: and is once you just go to take you to
Speaker 1: sacrifice it go to eight five minutes ninety minutes and
Speaker 1: then find out what you want to add to the
Speaker 1: movie that I'm what you want to cut from them?
Speaker 1: And I think that's that was my biggest moment where
Speaker 1: I really realized, okay, what this film is and then
Speaker 1: that film Then when I started doing that, the film
Speaker 1: starts speaking to me. The charcter starts speaking to me.
Speaker 1: Amani has a character and the story itself. The film
Speaker 1: starts saying to me, what, hey, what this film needs
Speaker 1: and what this what scene is needed? What's not needed?
Speaker 1: Instead of me enforcing myself and my style and my
Speaker 1: rhythm into the.
Speaker 4: Movie, I wouldn't they actual shoot itself. Did you have
Speaker 4: any difficulties?
Speaker 1: That was great, It was incredible. I had a great
Speaker 1: James who was my first ad. I had, of course
Speaker 1: one of my incredible partner, my shpotographer Benjamin who shot
Speaker 1: The Watcher, and then he came which is another spooky
Speaker 1: imagation movie that he came on desk and we were
Speaker 1: a tight ship on time and we shot on sixteen.
Speaker 1: So that was one of the exciting that I never
Speaker 1: I've shown in sixteen when I was when I went.
Speaker 1: I dabbled in the beginning, but to shoot the film,
Speaker 1: I was in incredible process. I just made it more
Speaker 1: to lose. I had way more to if I did
Speaker 1: mess ups, but but it went smoothly. I couldn't be luckier.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I could really see the film in the movie,
Speaker 4: which was so nice. It's almost like a special effect
Speaker 4: these days.
Speaker 1: When I did my first we just worked so hard
Speaker 1: with a fog machine and go into the color grain
Speaker 1: and put on the grain and so on this one,
Speaker 1: we just shot it and it went to the and
Speaker 1: then it went to and to post. We cut it
Speaker 1: and literally the color grad was and that's it. We
Speaker 1: didn't need to do all the run around that we
Speaker 1: did we do on digital. I was lucky. I don't
Speaker 1: think that's film. I'll be able to put it off again.
Speaker 1: It's just because there's no condac film. So we had
Speaker 1: to shoot everything here. We had to ship all the
Speaker 1: film here and then shoot everything, store it and then
Speaker 1: ship it back to the UK and then process it
Speaker 1: and then know whether five days later whether our film
Speaker 1: is intact or not, or if we were not. So
Speaker 1: a lot of the film was filmed on stage, so
Speaker 1: it came to a point where we're going to strike
Speaker 1: the stage and I'm not going to have that stated
Speaker 1: that that's the set design anymore. But yet the last
Speaker 1: batch of film hasn't come back and have it's five
Speaker 1: more that we need to wait five more days. So
Speaker 1: there was that nervousness to it. But thank god everything
Speaker 1: that came again, I was okay.
Speaker 4: Quite a leap of face. Every single day.
Speaker 1: It sounds, especially when you don't have a lab next
Speaker 1: to you.
Speaker 4: Your DP did a wonderful job. It looks so good.
Speaker 3: Yeah he did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, was incredible. It was incredible, so professional and so
Speaker 1: on the point. It was, as I said, like a
Speaker 1: type run ship. And we just banned out the shots
Speaker 1: and and we had a lot of room for improvisation,
Speaker 1: which we did a lot in this movie because as
Speaker 1: I said, having bador a mon who plays the main character,
Speaker 1: even the Nore who plays plays her daughter, we just
Speaker 1: wanted I wanted to keep that space for the actors
Speaker 1: to be actors, and I did. I didn't want to
Speaker 1: enforce like a certain thing because I think the main
Speaker 1: thing other than the hard scares and the herd sequences
Speaker 1: having the movie, which was of course like shot this
Speaker 1: in and we storyboarded those parts. But for me, I
Speaker 1: think the heart of this movie is the drama. That's
Speaker 1: that family dynamic that we have, so I had we
Speaker 1: had to just keep that space for them, and we
Speaker 1: improvised a lot. We provised more than I anticipated. But
Speaker 1: that was the beauty of it, because there's certain times
Speaker 1: to go in. There's a beautiful scene in the movie
Speaker 1: where Amani or main character or hero is watching after
Speaker 1: her husband comes to her and says, hey, I have
Speaker 1: someone else, and they forces this thing on her, that
Speaker 1: sort of this the situation on her and she's just
Speaker 1: watching and reminiscing of her she's watching them on the
Speaker 1: TV of their weddings. But the good and for our
Speaker 1: culture that day, and I always hear from my mom, right,
Speaker 1: she always has that picture of it's just such a
Speaker 1: big because back in the days, and it happens today
Speaker 1: not as often happens a lot, I'll saying fift fifty
Speaker 1: where it's a lot of his age, marriages and no
Speaker 1: family members knowing each other, and it's long a sense
Speaker 1: where hey don't see each other. No, not always, sometimes
Speaker 1: it happens, but the ar scenario is where they were
Speaker 1: speaking each other on the phone and when they go
Speaker 1: out on a date, it's a whole two families together
Speaker 1: and it becomes it's awkward situation. But for my mom
Speaker 1: and I always hear it. For her, that wedding day
Speaker 1: there was a big thing, and there's a VHS staatee,
Speaker 1: there is a picture, and so on and so forth.
Speaker 1: So there was a moment in the movie where she's
Speaker 1: watching and reminiscing them back and looking back at what
Speaker 1: they were once upon a time, and she just felt
Speaker 1: a different way than why we anticipated in the movie,
Speaker 1: and for me as a director, I wanted to keep
Speaker 1: that space for her, and it turned out to be
Speaker 1: one of my favorite scenes in the movie. It's just
Speaker 1: her watching watching the TV and the emotions they see
Speaker 1: there as honest as it could be. I was surprised
Speaker 1: that was floored, and I just didn't know how to
Speaker 1: speak to her at that moment. I just let her
Speaker 1: go on, you know what, you know how this feels,
Speaker 1: So take this will.
Speaker 4: I'm glad you're able to allow that improvisation, even though
Speaker 4: you're shooting on film, which seems like that would kind
Speaker 4: of limit the amount that you could do.
Speaker 1: I think I was lucky having Steven and having Roy,
Speaker 1: having Ben and Derek, and the the magation of the
Speaker 1: Spooky team where they really I remember having the call
Speaker 1: also whenever was the first weekend, and I remember having
Speaker 1: this called from Ben Ross and his listen, you just
Speaker 1: go get the movie. You will get to get the movie.
Speaker 1: Of course, well the women are straight, don't go crazy.
Speaker 1: But he really pushed me to the facts that are
Speaker 1: not if you're not getting the access to get to
Speaker 1: a point where you want them to get to, or
Speaker 1: they're not feeling that they got to the point they
Speaker 1: want to, let's use the extra film. We could buy more, two, three,
Speaker 1: four or five other roles to get that emotion's cross.
Speaker 4: So ten years later, you're back at the Fantastic Fast.
Speaker 4: How does that feel for you?
Speaker 1: Incredible? Love it. I love the festival. That was a
Speaker 1: much changing experience for me for the first time. Before
Speaker 1: that first time I went to I was because I
Speaker 1: was in the I was again turning the film commission,
Speaker 1: so you know what, the delegation will go can Sunday.
Speaker 1: But the magic that I saw in Fantastic Fast is
Speaker 1: unequivalent to anything else. That there is this sense of
Speaker 1: community and sense of love for the drawing itself that
Speaker 1: I really felt in the first film when I did
Speaker 1: Raw the Cage and since then I was. I've always
Speaker 1: been looking forward to my next one to come to
Speaker 1: Fantastic again. So really did it?
Speaker 4: Do you know where it's going after this?
Speaker 1: We're going to sitch Us after this and then we're
Speaker 1: going to have premier London Film Festival. Five.
Speaker 4: Is there a good place for people to keep up
Speaker 4: with the film.
Speaker 1: We have the Imagination Instagram page. They updated a lot
Speaker 1: about the movie. I think that's the main source from
Speaker 1: what I know. Maybe ourself, but I think then Imagination
Speaker 1: pages is the main source.
Speaker 4: Mister Allen. Sorry, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 1: This is great you thank you, appreciate it. Five us
Speaker 2: That