Ronan Bennett: in the Arab film lab

'Film-making is always a struggle, but the obstacles in the Arab world dwarf anything we in the west encounter'
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Top Boy
'I was one of the advisers for Yann Demange in 2009. When Top Boy was green lit I immediately thought of him.' Photograph: Tristan Hopkins

A car stops at the lights. There's one man behind the wheel and a second beside him. The passenger's little girl is in the back seat. There's another child, her brother, crawling all over his father, playing. The boy is being tumbled almost upside down, he is being kissed and tickled. It's Athens, 1983. Tzipi Livni is based in the city at this time, working in some unspecified capacity for the Israeli foreign service.

The lights are still red. A motorcycle pulls alongside. Already we know what's going to happen. All we can do is hope that at least the children will survive. The girl will make it, but the first bullet, the bullet that kills her father, also strikes her brother. More shots are fired. The driver is wounded. The assassins on the motorbike speed away. Later at the hospital, doctors pronounce Mamoun Mraish, a senior Palestinian Liberation Organisation figure, and his four-year-old son, Bashir, dead. The bloodied bodies are photographed.

We are watching Mahmoud al Massad's 2010 documentary film This Is My Picture When I Was Dead. Al Massad is known for playing with fact and fiction. His conceit here is to bring Bashir back from the dead to imagine the life of the fatherless 30 year old. He makes undead Bashir a cartoonist living in Amman, Jordan. Al Massad is there with his camera when Bashir visits his mother as she gently upbraids him for not having given her grandchildren. Mother and son talk about the husband and father who is absent from their lives: Mamoun the fighter, the man who chose cause over family. Al Massad is there when Bashir meets his father's old friends and comrades. He is there when Bashir hears for the first time how he got his name. And he is there for the humdrum: a doctor's examination, a row at work, a run on the road.

The actor playing Bashir is handsome and poised, he moves beautifully and is wonderfully understated. I make a mental note for possible future casting. And then we learn that we are watching the real Bashir. A doctor noticed that the boy, two hours after being declared dead, was still breathing, and they brought him back to life. The Arab world is full of stories.

I'm in Feynan, an eco lodge (red sand, goats, solar panels, candlelight) in the Jordanian desert, three hours south of Amman, as part of the Rawi screenwriting lab. The programme was set up in 2006 in partnership with the Sundance Institute and support from the Jordanian Film Commission to help Arab screenwriters tell their own stories in their own way. It's my second time here.

We descend on the lodge, experienced screenwriters (advisers) – some from the Arab world, others international – and emerging writers from the Middle East and the diaspora clutching their scripts (fellows). The fellows are not quite sure what to expect. There is apprehension, nervousness. Some are open, others defensive. But the lab's organisers, Reem Bader and Mohannad Bakri, have worked hard to create an environment in which everyone feels safe enough to be open about themselves and their work. They need to feel safe. Malcolm Lowry once said that there was nothing more humiliating than being an unpublished novelist. Some of the fellows have made shorts, but few have had a feature made. They are film-makers without films. They hardly know what to call themselves. Much of their material is autobiographical; they are doubly vulnerable.

Over five days, advisers and fellows meet for a series of two-hour long, one-to-one sessions to work on the scripts. The meetings are intense. By the end of the lab, most are exhausted. So much talking. So much mental rearrangement going on as fellows struggle to find ways to incorporate the ideas being thrown at them. There's a lot at stake for the fellows. I feel for them. The lab could be a significant step towards getting their film made. Cherien Dabis, a Palestinian-American, was a fellow at the first Rawi lab with her script of Amreeka. She's here now as an adviser, and her film was screened on Tuesday. This year, three former Rawi-supported projects are in post-production.

I've learned a lot at these labs, often during chatter at the breakfast table or during walks. I've also made friends and found collaborators. I met Walter Bernstein, co-creator of my TV drama Hidden, at a lab 15 years ago. I was one of the advisers for Yann Demange in 2009. When my latest drama, Top Boy, was green lit last year I immediately thought of him. It feels odd that I should be here as Top Boy is screened, but then again, maybe not so odd at all. Who knows what would have happened had Yann and I not bumped into each other?

Film-making is always a struggle, but the obstacles in the Arab world dwarf anything we in the west encounter. There's no real film industry to speak of. Ghassan Slahab, a Lebanese writer-director, whose films have been shown at Cannes, says that some years three or four films are made in Lebanon, some years none. Without continuous production, no infrastructure can develop. You need a sound engineer? Call someone in Egypt. A director of photography? Maybe there's someone in Tunisia. Ahmad Ameen, a fellow, showed Transit Cities, his first feature, for the lab on Monday. Not only was he the writer, he was the production co-ordinator. They shot the whole thing in seven days.

On Tuesday, Reem and Mohannad announce that one of the Arab advisers has to leave the lab. Another kind of problem is unconnected with experience, money and logistics: there are taboo subjects. A film supported by our departing friend has gay themes. It's provoked a scandal in the Doha Film Commission, a big source of film finance. He has been summoned to explain himself. He might lose his job. Everyone is outraged. Among the Arab film-makers there is talk of boycotting Doha. For some, a boycott will mean that long-cherished projects will be jeopardised. The dreams in the air in Feynan can just as easily blow away with the sand.

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