Sharjah24: Farha, the heart-wrenching tale of a 14-year-old girl in 1948 Palestine who undergoes a life-changing experience as she watches catastrophe consume her home from the confines of a pantry where she is locked up, enjoyed a full-house attendance at its Green Carpet screening yesterday evening at the 9th Sharjah International Film Festival for Children and Youth.
The bold debut from Darin J. Sallam, which has had a successful festival tour in more than 40 festivals so far, depicts the horrors of war as Farha helplessly watches the events unfold through the cracks of a wooden door and gaps between stones. What she sees will invariably alter her outlook on humanity, setting off her journey of transformation and forcing her to grow up as she leaves her childhood behind.
“Farha is a coming-of-age story of friendship, love, separation, exile, rite of passage, and liberation - all experienced in the face of loss,” said Sallam, in a discussion with the SIFF audience after the Green Carpet screening at Al Jawaher Reception and Convention Centre, Sharjah.
“It was a story that found me,” explained the director, describing how the story set against the backdrop of the Al-Nakba (Catastrophe) in 1948 that led to mass displacement of Palestinians, was inspired by the turn of events in the life of a young girl named Raddiyeh.
The story travelled across a generation and the Levant to eventually reach her, she said, explaining: “After Raddiyeh went to Syria, she met a little girl and told her the story. That little girl was my mother.”
The Jordanian writer/director of Palestinian roots said: “I was haunted by the character since the time I first heard the story as a child; it stayed with me, I felt connected to her and it became my responsibility to share this story.”
The award-winning director added: “I chose to tell the story of Farha because she was a child, a human being, with dreams and aspirations which were taken away from her, forcing her instead to fight for her life. I want people to remember Farha not as a number or statistic, but as a human - a child - who was forced to let go of her childhood and experience extreme loss at a pivotal moment in Palestinian history.”
Sallam, a Berlinale Talent 2021 and a Robert Bosch 2015 Film Prize recipient, says she had to push the limits of creative boundaries to get the shots she wanted as for 92 minutes, the movie is set inside the locked pantry and the camera never leaves the room.
“It was really important for me to bring the audience into that small dark room with Farha so they can experience what she experienced – her suffocation, her glimmers of hope, and her moments of despair. The sound design was also written in the script to create an overall visceral and sensory experience for the audience, just as Farha lived it,” explained the director.
Sallam’s debut feature has been named Jordan’s official entry for the 95th Academy Awards and will compete at the International Feature Film category for the year 2023.
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