Yaron Shani, left, and Scandar Copti at the Cannes Film Festival last year, where Ajami received a special mention.John Shearer / Getty Images
Nominated for an Oscar in the foreign-film category this year, and recipient of a special mention in Cannes Film Festival's Caméra d'or first-feature competition last year, Ajami - named for the volatile neighbourhood of Jaffa, near Tel Aviv, made up of Jews, Christians and Muslims - is extraordinary for several reasons. Not the least is the fact that it seems to be the first feature film ever co-written, co-directed and co-edited by an Israeli (Yaron Shani) and a Palestinian (Scandar Copti). The Globe spoke to Shani last fall, during the film's appearance at the Toronto International Film Festival, and to Copti by phone from Cannes this month.
I understand you had the idea for this multilayered, multicultural story but knew you'd never have been able to make it without Palestinian co-operation. How did you hook up initially with Scandar?
Shani In 2002, I was director of a student film festival in Tel Aviv, and we gave cameras to people with no previous background in filmmaking, to make short films. Scandar was one of them. We got along very well. When it finished, I told him about my Ajami feature, and we started working together. He's a mechanical engineer by training, but it was his childhood dream to be an actor and filmmaker.
What was the process like?
Shani Organic. I started going to Jaffa every day, and we met and drank beer and ate hummus and talked about life, politics, Jaffa, ourselves, our stories.
Copti To write together, you have to understand what is the agenda of the partner, what are his artistic views. I was born in Ajami and I still live there, and I had to introduce him to this world, and he had to introduce me to his.
Shani Along the way, we started to see that a lot of our own stories fit into the structure of the plot I already had scripted. I was overwhelmed by the human situation in Ajami, because I was from outside. Even if you live five minutes from there, you don't really know what's going on.
As a Jew, did you feel in any danger?
Shani Basically, no. But I live in a state where anything can happen any time, so you get used to that.
How did you find the actors?
Copti We knew we wanted to work in an unconventional way, using actors and non-actors, and no script. Yaron and I had a script, but the actors didn't. We prepared them for their roles, but then we wanted to immerse them in the experience. Even the background characters, the extras, had to be real. To find them, we went to schools, clubs, senior residences. Our police actors had been real policemen. The army guys had been in the army doing the same thing they do in the film. All the actors came from the same background as the character they played.
They must have been hard to find.
Shani It was. That's part of why it took eight years to make the film. And of course, at first, they had no confidence in us. It took time.
How did you divide responsibilities on the set?
Shani: Every decision we made together. It had to be that way. We were dealing with sensitive situations and we both had to be in agreement. With the Israeli characters, I was a little more involved, because if Scandar was there, they would have behaved in a different way. The natural state of relations between Arabs and Israelis in Jaffa is filled with hostility. We had to make a division there.
There's no mention, anywhere in the film, of politics, and yet it operates like a subtext for everything that happens.
Shani You don't have to script the politics. If you are telling the truth, even if you're stopped at a traffic light, it's political. It's a very complicated place, Israel. Two nations, two exiles, filled with mistrust and blood and vengeance.
What did the film cost?
Shani About $1-million. We shot it in 23 days. It was very intense. All shot chronologically, which was crazy, in terms of production. We had more than 80 hours of material.
Copti Fourteen months editing in a small room, by ourselves, weighing every decision.
Did other Palestinians discourage you from working so closely with an Israeli?
Copti Not at all. You don't hear this from Palestinians. They co-operate daily with Jews. We speak the language. Still, there's a high level of tension, because it's not a normal place, Israel. It's not a complete democracy. The Palestinian is still fighting for rights and the Palestinian minority is itself divided. So we have a lot of conflict, but those conflicts create good drama for film.
The film has scored major success abroad. What response has it had in Israel?
Copti Amazing. At first, nobody believed in it. They said, 'Nobody will watch a film in Arabic.' But 200,000 people saw it in Israel, a huge number. They went, they cried, they laughed and they identified. People said it opened something in their minds. A guy came up to me afterward, an Israeli, and he said, 'Your film changed my life. Before when I'd hear the muezzin calling muslims to prayer, I'd get angry. Now I hear it in a totally different way.' Now, he recognizes that we exist, whereas before we were invisible.