A Girl Made of Dust, the film

Wafa'a Halawi

Director

Biography

Wafa’a is a Lebanese/ French director currently living in Beirut. She started acting at age 5 and pursued an acting career until she directed her 1st film and became a filmmaker. In 2004, Wafa’a graduated from the Lebanese American University in Beirut with the film Act I Scene 10. She then went to the New York Film Academy where the one-year program allowed her to direct various films, including Very Rough Draft as well as wining two commercial pitches, among which one for Stella Artois.

After directing commercials and corporate videos in West Africa (Saatchi and Saatchi), and working extensively as a 1st Assistant Director mainly in the UK (Pinewood Studios) and Lebanon (Falling from Earth by Chadi Zeneddine), Wafa’a attended the University College London where she graduated with an M.A. in Film in 2008.

Wafa’a is currently developing the fiction feature A Girl Made of Dust, adapted from the novel by Nathalie Abi-Ezzi as well as the fiction feature Duet for Cello that attended development and screenwriting workshops such as the Scene Insiders, Gothenburg Film Festival and won 1st prize for Feature development at the ENGAGE workshop funded by MEDIA; Christine Vachon was part of the Jury. She is also a part-time film teacher at the Lebanese American University.

Director's vision

Having moved a lot since my childhood, I have experienced the war in Lebanon in fragments. In a way, like Ruba, I discovered the war via television before experiencing the sounds of approaching bombs and the immediate reality with my own eyes. I have run away from exploding buildings. I have slept in corridors in candlelight. I have driven down destroyed streets evading rifles and fearing to reveal my religion, as it could be a death sentence. My memories are at least as old as she is now. Needless to say her story touches me deeply on a personal level. Undoubtedly, I am not the only one.

The particularity of A Girl Made of Dust is that, despite the realistic setting that draws from historical events, it is not a narrative about the Lebanese Civil War, but rather a personal journey into the effects of violence through the eyes of a 10-year-old child. Through this innocent perspective, I envision the film to portray a fantastical feel that softens the dramatic load and enlightens some situations without depriving them of their intensity. Purposely, despite being a drama, the script offers a lot of comic relief as it comfortably merges the youthful humor of the children’s world with a more biting, social humor proper to adults.

Ruba’s imaginative energy props her to gradually pick up cues from the real world only to reinterpret them in her creative mind. In addition, the many characters involved in Ruba’s life are either too imposing or too silent--sometimes even dismissive. I feel this alternation of chaos and heavy silences, accentuated by many disappearances, are intrinsic to the film’s style. Therefore the visuals of the film combine the imaginary world of Amelie Poulain, the sentimentality of Cinema Paradiso and the childlike experience of a concentration camp in Life is Beautiful, with the difference that Ruba eventually confronts the harsh reality surrounding her.

Though the events unravel in a specific place, a Lebanese village, at a specific time, 1982, the emotions they carry are very contemporary since the personal approach to the story remains one that is universally compelling rather than specific to a Lebanese moment. In relation to that, I personally think the most poignant aspect of the film resides in its ending that offers the satisfaction of relief and redemption: Ruba’s enchanted mission to save her father transgresses her imagination. Finally, her family gets a chance to get rid of a past that has forbidden them to carry on.