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IFFR 2022 Big Screen Competition

Mabrouk El Mechri • Director of Kung Fu Zohra

"I wanted my daughter to get her own Rocky"

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- Inspired by The Karate Kid, the French director presents a strong woman who fights for her rights and her daughter

Mabrouk El Mechri • Director of Kung Fu Zohra

French director Mabrouk El Mechri's feature Kung Fu Zohra [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mabrouk El Mechri
film profile
]
premieres in the Big Screen Competition at this year's International Film Festival Rotterdam. The film is sits between a martial arts film and social drama. We talked to the director about his intentions with the project, where the inspiration for the story came from, and his protagonist.

Cineuropa: Where did the inspiration for the story come from?
Mabrouk El Mechri: Zohra is the name of my mother and I have an 8-year old daughter. Both were an inspiration to me. When I was my daughter's age, I had Rocky as a model, and I wanted my daughter to get her own Rocky. Besides that, the film tells the story of my mother, even if it should express a very universal kind of feeling. I didn't have the intention to make a feel-good movie. I wanted to talk about cultural violence, about a society that allows violence against women to happen. I thought a lot about the representation of violence in films. A lot of genre films create a distance to violence by adding humour. I always feel that the matter is not taken seriously. For me, it was important to focus on how it comes to this violence. The audience should understand the dynamic of the couple, how it interacts and where the violence between them arises. The film is not made to tell a message, not to share an ideology. It should in the first place provoke a reaction. I wanted to achieve that through a character-driven movie.

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How did you find your main actors?
For Sabrina Ouazani who plays the role of Zohra, it seemed just to be a really normal choice. She is one of the best French-Maghrebian actresses in France, I love her voice, she laughs a lot, she has a very physical presence and had a training in circus. It was easy for her to connect with kung fu and martial arts. Sabrina and Ramzy Bedia, who plays her husband, know each other and had a very good connection.

How long did Zohra train?
She trained for two months. Since we had an obligatory Corona break, she was able to train more than what we planned and we had more time to prepare.

Are the videos Zohra looks at on YouTube real or did you create them?
We created them. Writing the script, I searched on Google and found this real self-defence teacher that I used as a model. Talking about him to the rest of the team, we came up with the idea to just try to ask him if he might want to agree to act in the film. We met and he agreed.

One film that comes to mind is The Karate Kid. Was this film an inspiration to you?
Well, yes. It is not possible to tell a story in which an elderly guy teaches someone younger karate without everyone thinking of that film. I finally embraced the parallels. First I wanted a much younger actor to play the role, but then there was this component, that the female protagonist might fall in love with him, and I wanted to avoid that. She doesn't need a new love to find the strength to leave her husband.

Why did you not want Zohra to tell her daughter about her relationship with her father?
I saw that myself, that good fathers can be bad husbands. It is really hard, to go against the parent of your daughter. You do something about it, but you won't tell the children. This is one of the limits of the character.

You chose a narrator that is not Zohra herself. Was this clear from the beginning? How did the idea come to you?
I always wanted it this way. I thought it would be better if it's not the protagonist herself who tells her story. It respects the sense of humbleness that is part of her character. Moreover, I liked the fact that the story would get a slightly fairy-tale tone.

You use mostly warm colours and a bit of a vintage look. How did you develop the visual concept of the film?
I didn't want it to be too sober. The aim wasn't to reflect the surroundings in the most realistic way. The story was the focus. I wanted to show that the world Zohra lives in, if the conflict with her husband wouldn't be there, is a world that would actually allow her to be happy. This is why there is a lot of yellow and a bright sun, which could make her happy.

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