São Paulo – In a country with no movie theatres and in which filmmaking is a recent thing, youths travelling to a distant country can be a good story, and will. The exchange trip taken by a group of Saudi students to Brazil, in late June, will be the theme of a documentary produced by the young Saudi director Bushra Al Eidy.
Bushra recorded all moments of the Saudi-Brazilian Youth Forum, which brought a group of young people from the Arab country to attend a series of meetings and debates on topics such as the fight against poverty environment and organization of major events, in São Paulo, Manaus and Rio de Janeiro.
“This documentary is part of a series,” explains the director. “We shoot a different section of it in each of the countries that we visit, so that we may put it all together in one single movie about intercultural dialogues,” she explains.
The youths had already travelled to China and should also go to India, Germany and South Korea. Before it becomes a unified production, with the footage shot in the other countries, the filming of the trip to Brazil will be edited as a 15-minute documentary. After all of the trips, the final film should last one hour.
“In Brazil I found many colours, many spirits, much diversity,” says Bushra. “Brazil is a country, but it resembles a continent. Rio is more tourist-oriented, São Paulo is more industrial, Amazonas has its untouched nature. So basically you get to see a bit of everything,” says the director of her impressions about the country.
for the film, Bushra claims that the various events attended by the youths provided the footage with movement. “It all revolved around actions a lot, all the time. You feel alive whenever there is a lot of action going on,” she says.
Regarding her career, the director explains that she studied Administration, worked in the hotel industry, and therefore used to travel a lot. A few years ago, she decided to dedicate herself to filmmaking and put together a small company, in which she works alongside her husband, Bader Alhammoud. She claims to be a fan of Brazilian cinema and her favourite films include Central Station and City of God.
Bushra expects to complete her film on Brazil this month. Once ready, it will be available on the website of the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Relations, and will also be screened by the documentary TV channel Al Ikhbaria.
For those who wish to get to know Bushra’s work better, she keeps a few trailers of her productions at www.vimeo.com/bfilms.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum