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Two Pictures a Day in Amman
Ninth week
Gilles Porte, AFC, and Samuel Lahu, his first assistant camera, spent nine weeks in Jordan filming Mai Masri’s film 3000 Nights. They agreed to send us two daily entries from the photo journal they kept every day. Their stay has ended, and you can now discover the photos they took during their ninth and last week in Jordan.
3. Ext. Prison gates / Building - Night
3. Ext. Prison gates / Building - Night
The jeep comes to a halt in front of a large gate surrounded by watchtowers and barbed wire. Armed soldiers open the gate, one of them is holding a miltary dog. The soldiers separate Layal from the other prisoners, taking Ayman and the male prisoners to one entrance and taking Layal to the other. Rain beats down on her, soaking her to the skin.
The soldier who drags Laylal by her hair in the prison is no other than Kloob, one of the assistant directors… A number of takes were necessary in order to get Kloob to really manhandle Maisa who he constantly protected during shooting of 3000 Nights… Photogram (Gilles, July Wednesday 27)
The jeep comes to a halt in front of a large gate surrounded by watchtowers and barbed wire. Armed soldiers open the gate, one of them is holding a miltary dog. The soldiers separate Layal from the other prisoners, taking Ayman and the male prisoners to one entrance and taking Layal to the other. Rain beats down on her, soaking her to the skin.
The soldier who drags Laylal by her hair in the prison is no other than Kloob, one of the assistant directors… A number of takes were necessary in order to get Kloob to really manhandle Maisa who he constantly protected during shooting of 3000 Nights… Photogram (Gilles, July Wednesday 27)
Zarqollywood
Zarqa. Tonight, our set is looking quite like a Hollywood film. (Samuel, July Wednesday 23)
Hamada the Prisoner...
Besides being an excellent costume designer, Hamada was always one of Mai’s artistic and historical sources… When I asked to photograph him amongst the blue uniforms of the female Palestinian prisoners, he decided to dress in the brown uniform of the male Palestinian prisoners, alongside Alla, the wardrobe supervisor… (Gilles, July Thursday 24)
Suburbs of Zarqa
A dawn shot in a deserted neighborhood. All the buildings are empty, it’s like being in a Fritz Lang movie. A ghost of Israeli colonies. (Samuel, July Thursday 24)
To each his own…
Wadi Rum Desert... One last time before leaving Jordan... (Gilles, July Friday 25)
Bitch, Bill’s cat
Amman, half-day off (yesterday’s sunrise shot actually was taken this morning). We’re all exhausted today. You’ll notice that Bitch, Bill’s cat, is one-eyed. (Samuel, July Friday 25)
Before the rain falls...
Everything always ends up in a pile at the end of a movie… A more or less compact pile… A pile that will disintegrate in a few hours without anyone knowing whether he will see the others again… Here, about fifteen members are absent for various reasons… Special thoughts go out to Hélène L., Anton D., Rami Y., K.K., Rami A., Alaa M., Raja D... (Gilles, July Saturday 26)
Maïssa in Zarqa
Zarqa, “retake” day. We’re redoing the rain scene in the prison yard. Maïssa looks like she’s holding up the metal mesh in this photo. But in reality, it was she who bore this film on her back for the last 6 weeks… (Samuel, July Saturday 26)
Shadi : 71 kilos. Issam : 88 kilos... New generator : 4 kilos...
It would seem that these two photos have nothing in common, and yet they are very closely related… I had planned to use a converter to plug a spotlight (575W HMI) onto Layal’s car battery… But the projector never turned on… So, a little, un-soundproofed generator appeared in the boot of the car, in the place where Shadi (the sound engineer) had originally planned to sit. But, the little generator died before even allowing us to film a single take… Shadi therefore was able to take his rightful place in the boot… In the meantime, the sun had set, allowing Layla to drive the car in natural light, whilst Issam (the generator operator) left, more at his ease behind the wheel of a 100K truck than straddling a 4K generator ! (Gilles, July Sunday 27)
Volvo camera car
Zarqa. Last day of shooting. We get away (not without difficulty) abord an old Volvo. (Samuel, July Sunday 27)
Voyage in the occupied territories
Rather than go home to my native France, I chose to prolong my stay in the occupied territories, far from the constraints of a shooting schedule and any form of official organization… This trip will be very different form the one I took 5 years earlier in an enormous 4WD SUV belonging to the UN… (Have a look on June 2009 blog)
At the Allenby Bridge (aka the King Hussein Bridge), I lie to the Israeli soldiers by telling them I am going to visit Jerusalem… I never pronounce the name “Palestine”, which is the name of a city of the West Bank, or of one of my Palestinian friends… I give the address of a prestigious Israeli hotel where I will not spend a single night… I admit that I haven’t reserved because I know they check. I play my joker, Maisa (she has an Israeli passport) but then I realize that there’s a problem when I tell them she’ll come pick me up the next day to go to her house, in Nazareth, and I feel like I’ve been liberated when they hand me my passport allowing me entrance into the occupied territories !
I take two busses and a yellow taxi before arriving at Ramallah, at Majd’s house, who is the 3rd assistant director of 3000 Nights… In 5 years, the situation has become much worse for the Palestinians… The “check-points” have become more numerous… The Palestinian streets are unlit, whilst streetlamps are extremely numerous above on the mountaintops where camps of colonists have sometimes become true cities… Amongst the desert landscapes of the Jordan River Valley, how many Israeli flags wave over water wells surrounded by electric fences ? I don’t know whether or not I look like a cowboy with my leather bag, but the Palestinians are surely becoming more and more like Indians ! (Gilles, July Monday 28)
At the Allenby Bridge (aka the King Hussein Bridge), I lie to the Israeli soldiers by telling them I am going to visit Jerusalem… I never pronounce the name “Palestine”, which is the name of a city of the West Bank, or of one of my Palestinian friends… I give the address of a prestigious Israeli hotel where I will not spend a single night… I admit that I haven’t reserved because I know they check. I play my joker, Maisa (she has an Israeli passport) but then I realize that there’s a problem when I tell them she’ll come pick me up the next day to go to her house, in Nazareth, and I feel like I’ve been liberated when they hand me my passport allowing me entrance into the occupied territories !
I take two busses and a yellow taxi before arriving at Ramallah, at Majd’s house, who is the 3rd assistant director of 3000 Nights… In 5 years, the situation has become much worse for the Palestinians… The “check-points” have become more numerous… The Palestinian streets are unlit, whilst streetlamps are extremely numerous above on the mountaintops where camps of colonists have sometimes become true cities… Amongst the desert landscapes of the Jordan River Valley, how many Israeli flags wave over water wells surrounded by electric fences ? I don’t know whether or not I look like a cowboy with my leather bag, but the Palestinians are surely becoming more and more like Indians ! (Gilles, July Monday 28)
Straightening up
Amman, production office, day after the party for the last day of shooting. Now, we have to empty, clean, “unlabel”, put away, and weigh everything. Oh joy ! (Samuel, July Monday 28)
Tulkerem - Palestine (5 years later)...
Dana (have a look on a video) confides in me, as she shows me sketches of very sexy dresses, that she would like to become an “international costume designer”… As for Razan, she would like to be an international lawyer ; Rahaf, an agronomist “to make plants grow in the middle of the desert”… I didn’t notice, whilst photographing them, that each of the three is wearing the same colours she sported… 5 years earlier ! (Gilles, July Tuesday 29)
Immadiate boarding
Queen Alia Airport, everyone is going home in different directions, once again. A part of the team is going back to the real Palestine, whose blood has recently been shed. Once again, as I return to Paris, I am overtaken by a great fatigue. (Samuel, July Tuesday 29)
(Translated from French by Alex Raiffe)
- Have a look at the pictures taken by Gilles and Samuel during their eighth week
- Have a look at the pictures taken by Gilles and Samuel during their seventh week
- Have a look at the pictures taken by Gilles and Samuel during their sixth week
- Have a look at the pictures taken by Gilles and Samuel during their fifth week
- Have a look at the pictures taken by Gilles and Samuel during their fourth week
- Have a look at the pictures taken by Gilles and Samuel during their third week
- Have a look at the pictures taken by Gilles and Samuel during their second week
- Have a look at the pictures taken by Gilles and Samuel during their first week
- Read or reread Gilles Porte’s description of this project.
