Interview by Zoë Elton

Lebanese filmmaker-actor Nadine Labaki’s “Capernaum” (“Chaos”) represents a bold departure from her earlier work, such as “Caramel,” both stylistically and creatively. Working with mostly non-professional actors, the film centers on Zain, a Lebanese boy (played by Syrian refugee Zain Al Rafeea) who sues his parents for the crime of giving him life — when life as he knows it is lived in such dire poverty and full of suffering. Labaki’s film, which won the Jury Prize at Cannes, is a profound experience, in part because she explores a worldwide humanitarian issue from a place of compassion, rather than blame.

We caught up with Labaki at a recent screening in conjunction with Mind the Gap, the Mill Valley Film Festival’s gender equity initiative, to discuss “Capernaum’s” unique subject matter as well as her creative process.

“Capernaum” will open in New York and Los Angeles December 14.

This interview has been edited and condensed. 

W&H: One of the things that struck me most was that by the end of the film we get insight and understanding about Zain’s parents. You could have had them just be the villains. How did that courtroom scene where the parents speak up for themselves evolve?

NL: It was very, very important for me that we have those moments in the film because I didn’t want them to come across as only the villains. It’s never black or white. While I was doing my research, we went to the most unfortunate, difficult, miserable, and poor neighborhoods with extreme neglect in Beirut. Any big city has those belts of misery surrounding it. I used to knock on a door at random and go into those apartments — we can’t really call them apartments because they are divided into rooms and each room has a family.

We used to find kids two and three years old on their own all day long. I used to see kids on the balcony, on the window, or crying without anybody there. So, the first thing that would come to my mind was, “Who is this mother who leaves her babies all day long alone? What kind of a mother is this? Doesn’t she know that those kids are exposed to danger by being on their own?” I used to wait for the mother to come back because I was angry and I wanted to give her a piece of my mind.

W&H: You felt angry?

NL: Yes. I felt like I was entitled to say that because I think I’m a better mom. But then, 10 minutes after we started talking, I would think, “How could I even have dared to judge her?” I’ve never been in her shoes. I’ve never been hungry. My kids have never been hungry. I’ve never had to sell my daughter, who is 11 or 12 years old, to another man because I have no other choice and because I have to feed my other babies. Or because I think maybe she’s going to be better off.

So, you are always on this roller coaster of emotions regarding the parents. Your first human reaction is to blame them, but then you understand that they are victims of a system that is not giving them even a chance to breathe. So, it was very important to have those moments. I told them [for the court scene], “Now, you are in front of the law. This is the first time you ever, or maybe the last time ever, that you’re going to be able to speak up. You’re in front of a real judge and you have to speak your mind and say everything you feel about us judging you because this judge is the society.”

W&H: The creative approach you took to this film is very different from your other films. What did you learn about the creative process and did it give you a deeper insight into people, life, or collaboration?

NL: The most important thing I learned is that anything you need to do properly, you need to do it with freedom, and to take your time doing it. This is what I understood this time, because usually in my other films I was always a little bit rushed. I never researched so much. This took me four years of research. I created a huge network of people that would take me everywhere. I went to the most unfortunate places in Lebanon — to prisons, to detention centers, to the NGOs that deal with children, to courts.

I absorbed everything to have this thorough idea of what goes on. I didn’t want to feel like I was inventing it. So, during the process I didn’t interfere as a filmmaker. We shot in natural locations, real places, everything is real. There’s no set. Everything was shot where it happens. The décor and the clothes are real, and even the drawings on the walls of those apartments are real drawings done by real children who live in those places.

When we decided that we were going to shoot, we knew that it was going to take time. So, if the scene doesn’t work today, it’s going to work tomorrow. If it’s not going to work tomorrow, it will work in two weeks.

But I wasn’t going leave the scene unless I’m satisfied. I’m not going to impose anything on anyone. I’m not going to fake or make believe. You just have to embrace whatever life gives you at that moment and know how to navigate between the reality of that moment or the truth of that moment and also the fiction that was already written.

W&H: What did you learn about navigating chaos?

NL: You learn something every day. It’s this navigating through chaos and finding small miracles every day that keeps you going, actually. Otherwise, I think we’d be all depressed and the world would be just one big hell. Every day something would happen for us to find the strength to just keep going. It’s exactly this, when you look at how this whole adventure happened, everything about how we found Zain, how we found Yonas [played by Boluwatife Treasure Bankole], how we found the parents, how every day we found a small miracle. 

When I was writing the script and described Zain to the casting crew, I was thinking to myself, “I’m asking life for a miracle because I’m never going to find a boy who is smaller than his age because of malnutrition. Who has all this wisdom in his eyes because he’s grown up on the streets and the streets are everything he’s known. So, he’s a tough boy. He has the foul language of a boy that grew up on the street. At the same time, he has this wisdom of a boy that becomes the parent of his parents. And he has to be charming, he has to have those beautiful eyes.” And every day we would find a new miracle. Exactly the same thing with Yonas. I was thinking I’m completely mad. I’m never going to be able to make a one-year-old baby walk when I want him to walk and take his first steps when I want him to take his first steps and refuse the milk because it’s not his mother’s milk.

I’m happy because now Zain has been re-centered in Norway with all his family, and he’s going to school. I think this was meant to be for this boy because he has so much potential to take a different turn in his life. So, it’s always those small miracles that keep you going.

I truly believe that there was something pushing us like the truth.