Jordanian Bedouin ‘western’ snags Oscar nomination
The desert drama ‘Theeb,’ set in 1916 near Petra, is screening worldwide, but not — despite local efforts — in Israel
Jessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel's culture and lifestyles editor, covers the Sabra scene from south to north and back to the center
Jordanian filmmaking is heating up, with “Theeb,” a Bedouin coming-of-age film set in 1916, nominated for its first Oscar with a Best Foreign Film nomination.
The film, which just won a BAFTA at Britain’s film awards for best debut film, was sold to dozens of countries including China and New Zealand, but not Israel, its closest neighbor, the Walla news site reported this week.
According to Walla, the lack of “Theeb” screenings in Israel was not for lack of trying on the part of Israeli distributors, but rather the result of a decision made by Mad Solutions, the studio that produced “Theeb,” and which is based in Cairo and Abu Dhabi.
“Theeb” is the first Jordanian feature film produced in several years, following the award-winning 2007 film “Captain Abu Raed,” which was screened at the Jerusalem Film Festival. Prior to “Captain Abu Raed,” there had been no full feature Jordanian films produced for nearly 50 years.
The film has been compared to spaghetti westerns with its broad, sandy vistas filmed in the Jordanian desert and themes of good and evil as a young Bedouin boy gains an understanding of life and liberty in the adventure film.
Naji Abu Nowar, the movie’s British-born Jordanian director, told The New York Times that he grew up on stories about Bedouin warriors and felt their allure.
After meeting producer and screenwriter Bassel Ghandour, the two decided to adapt a western-style screenplay written by Ghandour into a full-length feature film.
Abu Nowar has described “Theeb” as a Bedouin Western, with nods to Akira Kurosawa’s samurai films and American westerns. The two filmmakers lived for a year in the southern Jordanian desert regions of Wadi Rum and Wadi Arabeh, close to Petra, to meet and live among local Bedouin and gain a better understanding of their culture and lifestyle.
The Bedouin didn’t always cooperate, he said, because they don’t care about acting and have never seen films.
“One of our actors actually disappeared after the first workshop because he thought it was ridiculous,” Abu Nowar told the Times. “I had to beg him to come back. It’s not like I’m in America or England and I can say, ‘Hey, I’m a movie director, and I think you got what it takes,’ and they think that’s cool. They’d go, ‘No, I don’t want to play silly games with you. I’m a man, I’m going hunting.'”
When “Theeb” was nominated for the Oscar, it “was like we won the World Cup,” he said in the New York Times interview. “The country went insane, literally nuts.”
They took the Bedouin actors and producers with them to the Venice Film Festival — but only after obtaining passports for them, as it was their first time on a plane.
“They arrived in Venice, the exact opposite of the desert, and went into their first cinema to see their first film, which was their film,” said Abu Nowar. “They got a 10-minute standing ovation. I’ve never seen anyone cry in the village the entire time I was there, but tears were shed that day.”
Another Bedouin drama, Israel’s “Sand Storm,” a female-driven drama about a Bedouin family in the south, recently won the grand jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival and had its European premiere at last week’s Berlinale film festival.
The Times of Israel Community.