Salt of the Sea is the Palestinian entry for the Oscar’s this year and it is also the first feature film in Palestine to be directed by a lady.
The plot centre’s on a young Palestinian-American woman’s journey into her home land and the complication’s that ensue. The complexity of the subject matter is tempered with her growing affections for a local lad.
Although the director Annemarie Jacir has been actively involved in Independent film since 1994. Salt of the Sea is her first feature film.
During the shoot, Annemarie was routinely refused permission’s to shoot footage by Israeli soldiers, but being a tenacious ladybird, decided to shoot anyway.
“I knew that as I’m a woman, I would just be sent home, but for the men, it could mean prison”
Understandably a few of the Palestinian crew member’s decided not to hedge their bets and pulled out.
We discussed the difficulties of being a female director, and she, like many other’s have just resolved to rise above it, and to prove the pigdogs wrong! Apparently she had troubles with some older french crewmen who constantly questioned her authority, but with persistence they began to realise that even without a wiener a director is a director.
So having completed her film in troubled territory, gaining funding proved to be the greatest obstacle, Salt of the Sea has 8 co producers and 17 sources of finance!
The funding Maze that Annemarie found herself in also caused creative problem’s as she was oblidged to use certain resources in order to receive the funds. This resulted in one of the pivotal scenes in the film being accidentally deleted and to her and the talents dismay, the whole segment was reshot. It was the films only fight scene.
The film is currently doing the film festival circuit and I will post details of the anticipated DVD release later, hater.
