From the Variety Lounge presented by Film AlUla at the Red Sea Film Festival, Variety‘s London Bureau Chief Alex Ritman spoke with “The Tale of Daye’s Family” director Karim El Shenawy.
The film, which screened at the opening ceremony of the Red Sea Film Festival, follows a 14-year-old Nubian albino boy who sets out to make it to an audition for an Egyptian show similar to “The Voice.”
“This is a moment where you realize that the film is no longer yours,” El Shenawy said of his project’s world premiere. “It was lovely to see the reactions and see how people got this emotional journey…got the sense of magical realism in the movie.”
The filmmaker explained that he initially found himself wanting to go back to the editing room to tweak certain aspects of the final cut. It was seeing the collective cast and crew that empowered him to sit back and enjoy the long-awaited screening of “The Tale of Daye’s Family,” he added.
According to El Shenawy, his film is universal because it is full of passion, emotion and input from different people. The director detailed how “The Tale of Daye’s Family” centers the narrative journeys and struggles of various characters, from Daye’s mother to his Christian music teacher.
“We wanted to make a film that is deeply culturally rooted,” El Shenawy said. “It’s a film about diversity and different skin tone, different dialects. It’s about the diversity in Egypt as a country and also the diversity of humans.”
The casting process for the film was a year-long process with open calls, shortlisting of names and meeting with actors’ families. El Shenawy said Daye was written as an 11-year-old and the script was ultimately adapted to better reflect the portrayal of the character, played by Badr Mohamed.
“We changed a lot of the casting. The dynamics changed,” El Shenawy said. “It was a lovely divine intervention because it became more coming-of-age.”
The director added that the creative team behind “The Tale of Daye’s Family” had no desire to cater to a specific direction or tone, such as making the project resemble an arthouse film or pander to European tastes.
“I hope it’s the beginning of something bigger and more collaboration,” El Shenawy said. “I still have a long journey before the commercial release.”
English (US) ·