Lebanese Director Karim Kassem Had Two Weeks to Improvise a New Film on the Fly

Two weeks before the cameras were set to roll, everything fell apart.

At that point, "Moondove" director Karim Kassem had spent two years developing his fourth feature and then painstakingly getting the project off the ground. The nonfiction film was supposed to follow a young woman who returns to a small village in Mount Lebanon after years of living abroad, with the central lead helping to connect the various eclectic townsfolk she would encounter.

The story was locked, sequences were storyboarded and the locals were ready to shoot – and then, 14 days before the big day, both the lead and the cinematographer pulled out.

"I had to burn the script," says Kassem at the Cairo Film Festival , where "Moondove" is playing in competition. "And then I had two choices: Whether to cry all of August or to improvise a different film."

Kassem opted for the latter, feverishly writing a brand new script in the two-week window before production, also improvising a new shot-list as he assumed DP duties as well.

"I had all the fundamental themes," he says. "I had all the elements and characters already in place; now they came to the forefront. They took the stage, I guess, [but] they already felt like family because we had spent those two years getting to know then."

This 2.0 version would embrace that stage aspect, using town-wide rehearsals for an unseen play as a narrative device to connect the various strands.

"I would walk around during pre-production and see the flyers for the actual play that was unfolding, that [one of the film's subjects] was actually in. And I realized that each narrative centered on departure in some very meaningful way. So I came up with my own text called 'Departures,' and then imagined this film as the play itself, with the subjects staging scenes from their own lives."

The method would also allow the filmmaker to access moments of intimacy and psychological vulnerability that aren't always a given within the nonfiction space. Chief among those themes is that of mortality – with much of the film playing in a slow and quiet register as the subjects consider, wait for, and sometimes even hasten their own ends.

In one affecting passage, Kassem focuses on a nonagenarian couple lying in bed, with both husband and wife quietly appraising one another to make sure the other is still breathing.

"When you spend so much time with these people, they just trust what you're doing," says Kassem. "Staging such a sequence is not easy, but some people will go for it, especially if there's honest and open, transparent communication about what the film is about. But I tried to stay as true as possible. Everything that's depicted on screen is really what they're feeling, what they're going through in the moment."

Of course the filmmaker has a knack for finding quiet in chaos. After spending a decade in New York – where he found success both as a DJ and as a commercial DP – Kassem returned to his native Beirut just one day before the 2020 port explosion that leveled much of the city, nearly killing him. As he healed, he responded with a film – one that fit his own placid temperament.

"I decided to make a silent film instead of something very aggressive or political or screamy," says Kassem. "That's just how I am. I'm never in a hurry, just like nature. So I'll do what I can in the way that time feels to me."

Shot in the immediate wake of the Beirut explosion and meant to capture the mournful silence that overtook the city, Kassem's dialogue-free feature "Octopus" would go on to win best film out of IDFA's Envision competition in 2021.

With "Moondove" now screening in competition at Cairo, Kassem is considering his next feature project. The filmmaker had lined up a Kafkaesque peek into bureaucratic dysfunction called "Before Now, Later" – and even brought the title to this year's Cairo Film Connection development platform – but Israel's ongoing war against Lebanon will make production impossible.

"All the areas that I plan to shoot in are bombed," says Kassem. "So the project is on hold."

"I have two other feature films in the pipeline as well," he adds. "But right now, the prospect of doing anything is very tough, first psychologically, and then in terms of logistics and security. There are drones 24/7, and there's a bomb every hour or so, so it's really hard to focus on anything. But even when my city and I are surrounded by chaos and war, there's always a space for quiet in my heart and in my mind."

"There are always those simple, Kiarostami moments that happens in between the chaos," he continues. "And I do martial arts and yoga, and have been meditating for 14 years, so I'll stay calm and I'll try to resist. But I really have to sit down and think, what's possible?"