Zeina Durra’s directorial debut, “The Imperialists Are Still Alive!,” premiered in US Dramatic Competition at Sundance 2010. A British born of Bosnian-(Palestinian-Jordanian-Lebanese) and Middle Eastern descent, Durra spent over a decade living in New York, and after making her first film, she took some time off to have a family.
“Luxor” will premiere at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival on January 27.
W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.
ZD: Hana, a British aid worker, returns to the ancient city of Luxor and bumps into her former lover, an archaeologist named Sultan. Walking through the familiar ancient ruins, Hana struggles to reconcile her past with the uncertainty of the present.
W&H: What drew you to this story?
ZD: I was sitting at home with the flu watching movies. My children were asleep. I had thought I was pregnant with our third but then wasn’t, and I had just heard that a movie that I had been working on and was maybe going to get green-lit had been put on hold. I was a little down, and dealing with the flu and hormones from the chemical pregnancy. I had this really reflective moment and looked at my life and my choices and thought about what it would have been like if I hadn’t done those things or had ended up doing something else. That night I went to bed and had a dream about Luxor and a woman walking around the temples and ruins. I had been there once as a child. Somehow the confluence of feelings and ideas merged into this idea.
I called my friend Zelmira Gainza, our director of photography, and told her about the other project being on hold and my Luxor dream. While riffing on the phone with her, I said that I wanted to make this film in Egypt. All I said is that it was nostalgic but not in an Orientalist way. It was a combination of the past and present, nostalgia in the face of our troubled times, and also growing up and looking back. She asked if she could shoot it. I said yes. I then wrote a page of notes and called Mohamed Hefzy, my Egyptian producer who randomly happened to be in London. We met up, he read the page, and said he would do it on the spot.
W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?
ZD: It’s a quieter film that takes you on an internal journey, so the tone is naturally different. It’s a reflective film about the past, processing it, and not finding an immediate solution but [instead] giving life—or just feeling things again—a chance. There is a sense of mourning something—be it youth or purity—as an inexperience which leads to absolute optimism, and maybe realizing for the first time that some decisions you make might be harder to change. I think the older you are, the more numb you can get, as it’s not the first time you are hurt, or disappointed, or have experienced trauma and you can just shut down. Hana makes a choice to overcome this.
W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?
ZD: There were so many. We shot in 18 days, so you can imagine how nuts it was. I had my third child, our 4-month-old baby, on set. When the location was too far or hot or rural, I left him with our nanny at the Winter Palace. However, I still had to nurse. I would pump the milk, put it in an icebox, it would get driven to a boat on the Nile, then taken across the Nile, and then someone would collect the milk and walk it to the hotel.
At the time, we just did it, but now looking back that was quite an epic thing to pull off in the middle of shooting. I used this tiny pump that goes in your shirt that nobody can see, called the Elvie, except for the fact that it had this little light that shines. Andrea Riseborough, the star of the film, would call me “Robo Boob” as I would be directing with flashing lights in my shirt. That always made us laugh our heads off.
Halfway through shooting, my other two children and our DP’s two children joined us out on set and it was a lot of fun. They were really good and on one occasion when they were too noisy we just put them in a production van and asked the driver to drive them around for a while! It was doable. I think that children on set should be encouraged.
I went into the temple before we shot and felt really unwelcome — and it wasn’t just me. What was really interesting was that the whole crew felt the energy and felt that we had to be respectful. I was worried that we might not all see eye-to-eye on this. We even had to do an offering. So we researched what the Ancient Egyptians did before worshiping there. We recreated it—much to the horror of the guard looking on—left some things for [Sekhmet, a warrior goddess and a goddess of healing], and returned. She seemed to be really happy when we went back. That temple is very alive.
My husband, who was visiting when I shot that scene, started chatting to some older French ladies who come and visit this temple and Sekhmet regularly because they felt a special energy in this temple. He was fascinated by this notion. That was also part of the great thing of not being able to lock everything down. The set was open so the tourists would kindly wait for us, but we were in there shooting with visitors the whole time.
We shot the film in 18 days. Sometimes I would have 20 minutes for a scene. My brain would literally melt as I had to think so fast. But we did it!
W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.
ZD: I had met our producer Mohamed Hefzy a few years before about a different project. When I got the idea to shoot a film in Egypt I knew he was the person to talk to. Luckily he was in London when I emailed him as he was with a film he had a the London Film Festival.
I didn’t have anything except for a page of notes. I asked him, “How much do I need to make a film in Luxor?” He said, “I like the idea. I’ll do it.” Then I texted Paul Webster who was producing another one of my projects and I asked him if he could executive produce.
I think the key thing is to always keep up with people as if they don’t work for one project, they might work for another. It sounds so easy, but it was 13 years of meeting different producers and them knowing my previous work.
W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
ZD: I have been making films since I was 10! It’s an art form that has everything in it. I like how you get to use so many parts of your brain. I also believe stories can change the world, as idealistic as that sounds!
W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?
ZD: Best advice: Keep your eyes down and don’t look around you.
The worst advice is always from people who want to contain a person’s energy. They always come up with limiting advice.
W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?
ZD: It’s much better now, trust me! Know and trust your gut. Often you’re forging a path, so just keep at it and don’t let patriarchal views—from men or women—get in the way.
W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.
ZD: “Cléo from 5 to 7” by Agnès Varda. It showed me that I could make a film about a lot of the little details that I love and that it can work.
W&H: What differences have you noticed in the industry since the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements launched?
ZD: It’s a different landscape. Nobody had called for ages, and suddenly I was getting unsolicited meetings. I think that’s great.
