UN CERTAIN REGARD RENDEZ-VOUS – Omar de Hany Abu-Assad

For me, real life often provides the most vibrant material for any storyteller and in the case of Omar this is no exception. While in Ramallah several years ago, I was having tea with a good friend who told me the true story of being approached by a government agent with personal information. At that time, the government agent used this secret in an effort to make my friend collaborate. Upon hearing this, I immediately knew I had to delve into this subject; to explore how such circumstances and actions would affect love, friendship, and trust.

I have never worked on something where all of the performances affected me so deeply that I, myself, became emotional. After calling “cut” on one scene, I looked down because my own tears embarrassed me. But the funny thing is I later discovered that the entire crew also had the same reaction to this moment; we all suppressed our tears. This made me wonder, why do some people wish to hide their emotions and others not? Why did we deny such a shared moment, in daylight, on a film set, in a place where everyone was essentially working towards creating a moment just like it for themselves and others to have, but in the dark room of the cinema? And that’s when I realized exactly why the cinema is so powerful. Movies are one of the few places where people can go to have a shared moment without reservation and judgment – it is one place where people do not have to consider oppressing their thoughts or emotions.