Publish date: 2024-08-02

Arab distributor Mad Solutions has taken world rights to Firas Khoury’s “Dear Tarkovsky,” the Palestinian filmmaker’s follow-up to his fiery Cairo Film Festival winner “Alam” (The Flag). Khoury will be introducing the project to prospective partners this week at the Durban FilmMart.

The director’s sophomore feature follows 35-year-old Farouk, a resident of Ramallah who dreams of making his first film, “A Bridge to Jaffa,” a period piece about a Palestinian resistance fighter. A graduate of Russian film school and a devotee of Soviet auteur Andrei Tarkovsky, Farouk is searching for an outlet for his artistic ambitions beyond the schlocky wedding videos he produces to make ends meet.

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But the first-time director struggles to finance his provocative film, which includes scenes of his protagonist on the battlefield in armed combat with Israeli soldiers. As his frustration mounts, he cooks up a scheme to con one of Ramallah’s richest — and crookedest — men out of his money, only for the plan to go astray when Farouk falls for the tycoon’s daughter.

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Though billed as a romantic comedy, with other genre elements thrown into the mix, “Dear Tarkovsky” is rooted in Khoury’s own difficulties financing his debut, a politically charged film about a group of Palestinian-Israeli teens who plot to secretly replace the Israeli flag flying from their school’s rooftop with a Palestinian one on the eve of Israel’s Independence Day. “Alam” premiered at the Toronto Film Festival before triumphing in Cairo, with Variety’s Alissa Simon praising its “intelligent, sensitive treatment of the rarely seen, everyday lives of young Palestinian citizens of Israel.”

Despite the accolades, Khoury hopes that his follow-up won’t be an encore performance. “It took me 10 years to finance my [first] film,” he said. “[Palestinian filmmakers] are mainly financed by European funds which are more interested in erasing our story than showing it. I think European funds in general would like to finance films which show the Palestinians as victims, but not show the whole story.

“I think every Palestinian director and every Palestinian screenwriter, including me, knows in their subconscious they are not allowed to tell a story of a Palestinian resistance fighter, because he’s [considered] a terrorist,” Khoury continued. “They know what to write and what not to write to get funding. In ‘Dear Tarkovsky,’ I talk about the fact that Zionism deprives us of our narrative and our ability to tell our story.”

“Dear Tarkovsky” is produced by Asma Chiboub for Tunis-based Atlas Vision, in co-production with Italy’s Dugong Films (“The Girl in the Fountain”) and Sweden’s Fox in the Snow Films (“Costa Brava, Lebanon”). The film is partly inspired by Tarkovsky’s “Nostalgia,” which tells the story of a Russian poet and his interpreter who travel to Italy to research the life of an 18th-century composer. Khoury sees both films as portraits of artists in exile, with Farouk growing increasingly disconsolate over both his personal struggle as a filmmaker and the situation in Palestine.

With the war in Gaza approaching its one-year anniversary, Khoury admits that it has been difficult to stay focused on filmmaking. “I can’t bring myself to work. In a place where an open genocide is happening, everything loses its meaning,” he said. “I make films with a cause. I always make films with a cause. Being from an occupied place, from a hard reality, I try to make films to affect the world. To give us freedom.

“I love cinema. I love telling stories. But the stories that I want to tell are stories about occupation, in one way or another,” he went on. “Everything loses its meaning. It’s hard. It’s hard to be creative in such times. It’s hard to believe that your film will make a difference.”

The Durban FilmMart, which will have a showcase for Palestinian filmmakers as part of its 15th edition from July 19 – 22, marks the first time Khoury will be pitching “Dear Tarkovsky” to an audience of prospective financiers and partners. Asked about the significance of presenting his film in South Africa, the director referenced the efforts by Nelson Mandela to find allies in the struggle against apartheid.

“They asked him, ‘Why do you support Arafat or Castro or people like this?’ He said, ‘Because they support me,’” said Khoury. “I’m looking for anyone who will support my struggle to tell this story. What I look for in Africa is support — people on board to make my films, to tell my story, to have a counter-propaganda to the Israeli propaganda. Till today, the whole media around the world consider a Palestinian who raises arms in order to defend his land a terrorist. It is fucking ridiculous. We will tell a different story.”

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