We met with the filmmaker Leila Albayaty as she presented her second feature film in the 7th Brussels International Film Festival’s National Competition. A documentary drawn and sung in the first person but which resonates in many ways, From Abdul to Leila [+lee también:
crítica
entrevista: Leila Albayaty
ficha de la película] re-establishes the bond between a father and daughter through singing, language and poetry, allowing traumas to resurface in order to move forwards.

Cineuropa: How did this project come about?
Leila Albayaty: I’m a singer and a director. My father, who’s Iraqi, really liked my music and, one day, in 2015, he sent me his own creations in Arabic. When I saw these texts in Arabic, a language I didn’t speak at all, I decided to document it. It really energised me, I borrowed material, and I put together a mini-team – there were three of us – and that’s when the attacks of November 2015 happened. It was a terrible time for me, it stirred up a lot of trauma and, from that point onwards, I decided to make the film by placing decisive emphasis on my cultural origins.

How did you decide on the form for the story?
As it happens, I act and sing in all of my films. It came about over time. To begin with, I had no idea that I was going to make a film about my own story; I’d set out to make a film about music and my parents. But when the attacks happened, it because unavoidable that I talk about my past, about what it means to be half and half, both French and Iraqi. People kept telling me that I had to talk about myself, but I couldn’t do it, it was like I was resistant. So I started to draw, in order to face up to the memory loss I’d suffered after an accident left me bed-bound in my twenties, and after a traumatising trip to Iraq too, which left me haunted by ghosts.

It was only during the editing phase, when I’d written the voice-over, that I decided I needed to sing it. I started to learn Arabic so as to be able to sing it, and, ultimately, it became the film’s guiding line. I remember one day, someone saying to me: "Make the films that only you can make", and that advice has always stayed with me in the recesses of my mind. Little by little, I developed my own way of making films which was unlike any other approach I knew. I found a new way which didn’t feel standardised.

How did you decide on the space allocated to your parents in the film?
To begin with, my mother didn’t want to be filmed. I filmed them a lot and, in the end, they came on board, suggesting things they thought were important to say. I think that with what’s going on in the Arab world and in France, it was important to them to convey a peaceful message, to foreground the fact that these two cultures enrich one another. It was really important to my parents and to me too. I felt that we could speak about something bigger through this story, despite their modesty.

The song written by your father reads: "Ana Hura (I am free), Ana Thowra (I am a revolution)". Was this planned?
I remember that my pronunciation was bad, to begin with, and I always ended up saying the wrong things (laughter). Ultimately, this song’s a bit like a prayer. I learned to write the alphabet and, in the end, I fell in love with these songs and these words. It was my father who wrote "I am free, I am a revolution"; he explains in the film that he wanted to depict a new place for Arab women, where they can choose their destiny. All these words are very important to me, to be able to speak about independent women choosing their own destiny today. But I think people also dream of revolution in the Arab world. My father’s song is also a utopian message vis-a-vis our past.