Syrian actress and director Waha al Raheb will start next month shooting her new film Ruaa Halema (Dreamy Visions), which depicts woman's persistent struggle to gain her rights.
“I scripted this film few years ago when all members of the Text Reading Committee said that there was no problem with it and there was no reason to prevent its production as far as the intellectual content is concerned. But I was always surprised with postponement, delay and temporization as reasons for delaying the production of this film. This was recurrent to the extent that made me believe that there was no chance to do that. I do not exaggerate if I say that at one time a colleague working for the Text Reading Committee of the General Syrian Cinema Corporation told me that this script could have been produced long time ago if a male director had applied for it,” al Raheb told the UAE daily al Bayan.
The young director added, “regrettably the old management of the General Cinema Corporation had its own vision regarding such issues. This has continued until this management was changed by a new one headed by Mohammed al Ahmed who was familiar with the problem, which the film Ruaa Halimah faced. He formed a new committee for reading the texts which reviewed the film’s script and discovered that there was no objection for producing it and so it was enrolled within the corporation’s production plan.”
“The themes of the film are varied and diverged as they begin with the thorny relation between sons and parents and the relation between the various generations’ experiences including the relations between man and woman and woman and her homeland. The film tackles all these issues through dreaming characters who lack experience but substitute that by daydream and other dreams,” al Raheb said commenting on her new film.
The actress is also shooting her role in the new TV series Abiad Aswad Wa Ramadi (White, Black and Grey) which is a social drama that deals with a number of complicated themes that reflect the reality of Arab society.
Meanwhile, the artist is preparing to issue her new book on The Feminist Presence in Syrian Cinema. It traces the situation of Syrian women on film during the period between 1963 and 1986, and the positive consequences of their activities. The book presents a clear picture of women in Syrian society – Albawaba.com
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
