Naaman Azhari and Lilia Laurel – nominated for ‘The Magic Boat’
What is your story?
Naaman Azhari: I’m a twenty-five-year-old filmmaker-animator. I’m a bit all over the place nationality-wise. My parents are Syrian-Lebanese, I was born and raised between France and Lebanon, and I studied in the UK. The Magic Boat is my third animated short film and the first one I’ve made independently. I’ve made two other animated short films as part of my university program at Goldsmiths College. One of the most recent ones, ‘The Sunshine Boy’, was also exploring a mother and son narrative but had a different message and social commentary.
Lilia Laurel: I am originally from Moscow, Russia, but have been living abroad from a young age due to my parents’ work. I have been raised in the United Arab Emirates and lived for the past eight years in Beirut, Lebanon. Hence, the Middle East is very close to my heart.
I have known Naaman since we were in high school, and were both obsessed with filmmaking.
When he first contacted me in August 2018, telling the story of “The Magic Boat”, I became beyond excited to produce this film since I thought the refugee issue has been getting limited exposure, and it would be a great opportunity for us to tell this story to a bigger audience. Making more films that portray the emotional side of things instead of just hearing the facts on the news raises awareness of the topic. The more people aware internationally of what has been happening, the more lives can be saved. And that is what matters the most.
What is the story of your short animation film ‘The Magic Boat’ and what is the wider story it is aiming to tell its viewers?
N: The Magic Boat follows the journey of a mother and son through the hardship of migration. She tries to protect his imagination by telling him that they are about to embark on a magical journey. The film has many metaphors, the main one being the magic boat. The paper boat we see Khaled playing with is made out of newspaper. The message I’m trying to convey here is that refugees weren’t always refugees until they had to escape their hometowns because of political turmoil and danger. They go from normalcy to becoming headlines in the newspapers if they’re lucky.
Most times, they become numbers on page 10 of a newspaper, stripped away from their humanity and reduced to ‘individuals countries have to deal with’. Therefore, we see Khaled and his mum going through that ‘Magical’ journey of being transformed into the newspapers that the boats were once made out of. Their normal lives no longer exist in the present time, but only through their memories.
L: I believe this story shows the scary reality of the refugee situation not just in Syria, but throughout the Middle East. People paying with their lives, trying to escape in order to survive. While the mother knows that sailing might cost her and her son their lives, she also knows that staying in the country might kill them both. Therefore, she is put in situations where she has to choose the lesser of two evils. The film is very touching. Even though it is not based on any particular real story, one can imagine just how many thousands of people had to go through this traumatic journey. From my personal experience of living in the region and never knowing when the next conflict might strive, you learn to live day by day, choosing to love and appreciate the country you are in because of its beauty and heritage.
Is it important for you to represent your culture in your work? And how do you think storytelling benefits cultures and communities?
N: Stories from non-Western cultures, especially Arab cultures, are very rarely told by non-Western voices, leading to harmful stereotyping. This is something I’ve definitely noticed growing up, which is why I find representation essential. The refugee crisis has always been very close to my heart, as I have been exposed to it whilst living in Beirut since the conflict in Syria began. Seeing refugees dehumanized by the media, whether it’s right-wing media treating them like terrorists or left-wing media treating them like one-dimensional sob-stories, I felt that these people weren’t being shown as full-fledged humans who had lives similar to yours or mine before they became figures in a newspaper.
On the representation front, I made sure that my actors, too, were close to the issue. For example, the actress who plays Mama fled the war herself and now works at an NGO dedicated to helping refugees in Lebanon. I took representation very seriously while making this movie. However, I do want to point out that culture is not everything. Because my background is quite mixed, I have been drawn to different cultures and communities – Arab, French, English, and so on. There are many stories that I want to tell (and have told) that don’t necessarily reflect my culture. It is very important for me to go beyond identity and not be limited by my own.
L: As a Russian, I love my culture and appreciate any opportunity I have to work on a project related to my country. However, living and working mainly in the Middle East, I also understand the importance of representing other cultures and communities. As a creative producer, I understood the importance of telling someone else’s story in order to make a bigger impact. I, as any other person, might have some good stories to tell and perhaps there will be a day when I will, but for now, collaborating with people who have a bigger social and moral message to deliver means a lot to me and my career.
Do you think of animation as a form of self-expression?
N: I think it’s more than self-expression. It’s where you explore and challenge yourself to create worlds with no boundaries.
L: I think that any form of art, in general, is a form of self-expression. In the particular case of animation, there are limitless possibilities of what you can make out of your film. Many times directors would be constrained by budget cuts, locations, or any other production-related matters that would either slow down the whole film or would require additional adjustments that are not always easy to make. With animation, the director has the ability to create any imaginable or, even, unimaginable world. Animation erases those limitations – therefore, it is a great tool for self-expression.
Do you think there are benefits to storytelling with animation rather than live-action?
N: I can only speak from my experience and my technique. In my case both live-action and animation go hand in hand. I love both worlds. I love working with actors and having that collaborative experience on a set which is what I got to experience in this film. But I also love what I then get to do over months of drawing and the worlds I get to create around my characters. There is definitely more room for imagination with animation and endless worlds you can create. it’s definitely a more detailed-oriented, time-consuming way of making films, but I love it.
L: Animation opens up many new possibilities for the process of film production. The creator has control over every single detail in a film: the exact colours of every single object, the details of each and every set, as well as the precise emotions of the characters. The whole process is extremely detail-oriented. Each frame takes some time to come to life, be in it a traditional animation, 2D or 3D or stop motion. From a producer’s standpoint, we had a lot of freedom working on this film, even though it combines both live-action and animation together.
During the filming process, we had a lot of flexibility in terms of locations, budgets, and even timings. We were mainly shooting on one indoor location, where the environment was easily controlled. Always a big plus for any production, since you get to set your timings not thinking of weather conditions or “losing the sun”.
Even the water sequence was shot in a huge indoor pool. At first, we were considering shooting at an actual sea but later on decided that, since the whole film will be drawn frame by frame, we will have the luxury of indoors where we have all the privacy and time for ourselves.
What advice would you give to people starting out, trying to produce their own animations?
N: Don’t feel limited by what you read about people’s processes and how they’ve made their films. I think it’s important to learn from people’s experiences and incorporate things that you feel can work for you, but make sure you do what you want and don’t be discouraged by any preconceived notions. Always surround yourself with people who support and love you while you’re working. You’re going to need them at 5am, even though they’re begging you to go to bed.
L: Whether you are producing or directing, my main advice is not to be scared of the industry or put limitations on your vision. It is very easy to get demotivated when you look up to people who have more experience or budget or bigger scale productions than you. Starting off is never easy, especially in the film making industry. However, recently we see so much young talent emerging. I think, specifically with animation, there’s a lot someone can do to make the film happen exactly the way they want it. The possibilities are limitless.
