Film director Salma Azzam: The first Syrian to participate in the Cannes Film Festival.

That she chose the career of filmmaking, which is her hobby and dream, which he inhabited early from childhood to recognize a world that begins from the magic of the image to the issues that concern the human existence and life .. As a Christian believed in her mission to look for options that can be verified and accomplished her dream was a nostalgic distance between Damascus and Dubai, She is the most promising dreamer since she first recorded her film with the finest human content at the Cannes Film Festival and got a great show, which gave her an incentive to continue. Due to the diversity of interest And decided to return to her country Syria and the homeland of the alphabet with the desired cinematic creations, and closer to the aspirations of her generation in the formation of a different cinematic culture translate her dream and more .. To know more, Juhayna had the following encounter with her:

Salma and the dream.

Twenty-year-old Salma Azzam, a Syrian student in the third year, was a film director. She spoke of her simple experience in the directing world, which she started at the age of seventeen: "From an early age I was obsessed with the presence of films. "When I finished high school I chose to enter the field of cinema and the world of output because the director in my opinion is the captain of the ship in these works, and from here I loved this area and felt that I have the ability to deliver my message, all close friends Mona Ka Wa contend I have a personal leadership since childhood, gave me a boost and increased my determination to choose the output art specifically despite the difficult big responsibility borne by the director to the large number of people on the one hand, and on the other hand, the responsibility of harvesting work results positively and negatively.

The start.

Salma, who grew up in an artistic family. Her father, a painter and her mother, had artistic activities and devoted time for her family to have this great artistic culture. She said, "At first I wanted to go to study in America at a university in Los Angeles. (Visa) is very difficult, so I went to look for another option and at the same time it is close to my country to communicate better with my family. I found a branch of the university in the UAE. I learned from my small experience that I could translate my thesis into university projects so that I could later From participating in the most important festivals of the I was always trying to differentiate myself from my friends, and I develop myself, especially in terms of presentation and presentation of ideas and tools, as most of what I care about is enriching My Arabic culture, the end of my career will be in my homeland and the alphabet.

Participation in «Cannes».

She added: The important step in my simple career is my participation in the Cannes Festival through the presentations, which was in the graduation film for the first year of my studies. I have contacted the supervisors and I had no hope that my film would be accepted and I kept silent on the subject of correspondence in anticipation of people's reactions and opinions. , But a month after submitting the application, I received an answer that my film was accepted for the short films category in the shows and not in the competitions. As a first step, it is very important to document my name with the festival.

The idea of ​​the film

Salma, the young Syrian girl whose country is suffering a vicious war, drew attention to the Western media and world-wide interest in cinema, focusing on their strength, determination and determination to reach world-wide by talking about peace and dialogue through the Cannes film. A 15-minute drama about a poor man playing the piano in the street to raise money, the events deal with the harsh nature of his life and the circumstances he experienced, but he encounters a young girl who is competing with the guitar and tries to take what he earns in her own way , And from here begins Alm "The idea of ​​the film is to focus on peace and dialogue in a civilized way without fighting and blood, and this applies to all societies. This message, which I tried to convey, that we must resort to competition in legitimate and civilized ways away from wars and differences, Because we are tired and want to live in peace, and the reasons for this unprecedented attention from the Western media said: many factors contributed to be the focus of their attention as Syria and my country in a state of war large and small age, in addition to being a female student.

Continue the journey

"The second step after the first participation in Cannes was the transfer of my studies from Abu Dhabi to another university in Dubai, and in addition to studying the work On independent short films, formed a small team of my own with the help of my colleagues, and completed a film about the idea of ​​money, "Where does money come from, how it goes, a link between people in the world."

And the ambition of a second participation in the Cannes Film Festival prompted me to work in a short time to overcome the difficulties that faced me then, and I filmed within four days and one day of editing, and I was able to send it on the last day to receive movies in the festival, and the surprise and joy that the response came after 6 hours approval .

Completed work

"I completed one episode of the Children's Program (Open Sesame) with a big company in Abu Dhabi for the production of films, and we will continue later with a contract to complete the program.

The other work was an assistant director with an Emirati director in an Arabic film in which Syrian, Lebanese and Egyptian actors participated. We presented him to participate in the Dubai Festival and we are waiting to approve him, and here I would like to point out that the assistant director is considered the executive director.

Academic Director

Salma considers that the director must be an academic to enrich his work and succeed in dealing with his team, especially the film director. "When I entered the university I learned all the steps from scratch. I learned to carry the camera and use it, run the flash, write a screenplay, talk to actors, I have difficulty dealing with older actors. I have taken great interest in them during filming to continue working. I totally reject the idea of ​​shouting at representatives and the team. The most important step in my opinion is that all Someone in the A person knows his duties and his rights, and this has nothing to do with experience and age, but with the way that each person puts himself in the other person's position to continue the work or else he will not succeed. For example, when I work with someone who does not treat me well, I will not continue with him. I would like to continue with this work, and I would like to continue with this work, noting that work in the field of art in general is an integrated work and can not be accomplished individually.

Women 's participation in cinema

As for the scarcity of women in the field of directing and their poor participation in international festivals, she said:

Salma: Indeed, a small number of women in the field of art who specialize in directing the difficulty, in addition to the lack of interest in the work of women's film director, we note recently that the London Film Festival allocated more than a quarter of the work of women in support of their presence in this area , And this indicates that the outputs worldwide suffer from a lack of interest in their work, and attributed to Salma that it may be due to the lack of development of their ideas or other reasons related to the subject matter, especially women's issues, so it must come out of this framework and the expansion of the presentation of different ideas and variety and out of the stereotype and repetition.

Cinema in Syria

As for the cinema in Syria, the place from which she started to realize her dreams and her opinion, she said: In Syria we miss a lot for the quality of short films and I do not know why? Except for the recent short film festival, which is an important step that must be continued. For the long films, most of them are old and talk about the stories of parents and grandparents and do not address the current generation, development and the age of technology. As for the ambition in Salma's professional career, he says, "What I aspire to do is fill this gap in Syrian filmmaking. I think at the end of my studies that I will establish in my country a base from which to launch our civilization to the West in a smooth and sophisticated way. Yin, and deal with many representatives to capitalize on their great experiences.