Producer and director Nour Wazzi has earned numerous accolades and awards for her shorts. In 2017, the BBC named her to their New Talent Hot List. Since then, she has directed stars such as Game of Thrones’ Emilia Clarke in Murder Manual, and most recently, joined the creative behind the new young adult sci-fi series The Last Bus on Netflix.
Hayat spoke with Wazzi about her approach to science fiction, casting Arab leads, what ties her stories together, and more.
Tell me a bit about Panacea, and its founding philosophy of creating media with international reach and appeal. What specific elements of your films and stories that you think speak to a basic human nature? How do you bring these out?
I’m a Lebanese, female director/ writer married to a black British screenwriter – a rare combo that shapes my unique perspective. I was born in Beirut during the civil war, then moved to Cyprus and eventually London. I was brought up on Hollywood movies so my sensibilities naturally gravitated towards subversive genre stories that have global appeal. The word Panacea actually comes from the Greek Goddess of healing and refers to the all-universal, all-healing, elixir of life…
My stories generally span universal themes of loss, family, love, identity, prejudice, belonging, time, memory and the nature of humanity. Under the guise of escapism and entertainment, I find that ultimately what speaks to people comes from evoking a genuine heartfelt connection. Maya Angelou says it best – ‘I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.’
Sci-fi has long been a vessel for exploring serious questions of humanity and society, but it seems that the horror/thriller genres have recently been rising in that respect, too—films like Get Out and Antebellum, Parasite, etc. Most of your work seems to be in the intersection of those genres—do you have a preference? Do you find certain questions and issues are best treated with the supernatural? What are the major benefits of working in sci-fi/horror/thriller, and are there any difficulties or pitfalls?
I generally lean towards sci-fi thrillers and thrillers as I love slow-burning suspense and putting my audience at the edge of their seat, nothing beats that kind of visceral experience for me. I’ve never been as interested in the shock and scare factor in traditional horror films but there has been a rise of more intelligent ‘elevated’ horrors that have been changing my perspective of the genre. ‘Get Out’ was marketed as a horror/ thriller which surprised me as I wouldn’t have equated that as a horror at all, and ‘Parasite’ was marketed as a thriller/ comedy – both are actually two of my favourite films from recent years that kept me absolutely gripped and had a social commentary at the root of it – I’ve been hugely inspired by both masterpieces.
While the hardest to finance, Sci-fi is certainly my biggest passion and is such exciting way to parallel contemporary issues, explore the possibilities of existence and as you say question humanity and all its grey areas in a meaningful yet entertaining framework. There’s always a risk that certain sci-fi or supernatural elements can feel disconnected from humanity as it’s impossible to relate to things like being an A.I., having a superpower, or travelling dimensions or time for example, but I find as long as the questions and themes are rooted in personal human experience and your characters evoke empathy then you’re headed in the right direction in my book!
I’d like to hear a little bit about your perspective on representation. You’ve talked about wanting to create films with Middle Eastern leads, black leads, diverse leads and characters in general, but for whom that identity isn’t the whole of their story. Was it difficult to find markets and audiences for the stories you wanted to tell? What has the response been like? How has this climate changed over the course of your career?
Coming from a minority ethnic background, I’m always fighting for representation both in front and behind the camera. On-screen inclusivity is getting a lot better but I can’t say the same about the infrastructure, executives and crew which are still pre-dominantly very white (and male), particularly in the UK, and think we’re a long way from that changing but we’re moving in the right direction.
It’s certainly a lot harder to package and finance films with diverse leads particularly if you want to work at a certain budget level, plus it doesn’t help that there isn’t enough ‘bankable’ diverse talent out there yet. I’ve got two features casting at the moment – one with a Black female lead and one with a Middle Eastern male lead and while my scripts have got a brilliant response it’s proving a challenging journey. My Arab-American led whodunnit-style thriller that I co-wrote with my husband, in the vein of ‘Gone Girl’ and ‘The Night Of’ with the brilliant Riz Ahmed, plays with Muslim stereotypes and assumptions even though the character is actually a non-religious Christian. It’s a moving and edge-of-seat mystery that explores themes of marriage, forgiveness, belonging, prejudice, past trauma and secrets.
I’ve just started shopping round an exciting new TV show set in an alternate present that follows three young Americans, one of them being an Arab-American Muslim girl. It was hugely inspiring seeing a show like A24’s ‘Ramy’ out there that explored the nuanced (and very funny) livelihoods of a modern Arab-American Muslim family, and while I’m not a practicing Muslim myself, it certainly spurred me on as we all need to see more complex and authentic representations of ourselves out there.
I think online platforms such as Netflix and Amazon are positively changing the face of this industry, helping get new voices and perspectives out there. Ultimately, it’s always going to be long ass journey in this business and change is going to come, it’s a matter of time and perseverance.
Could you tell me a little bit about the upcoming Netflix show? How different is it working on a bigger budget, more mainstream production like that?
I’ve just completed production on the exciting action-packed sci-fi/ adventure Netflix show ‘The Last Bus’, about a group of mismatched kids who band together to face a new machine intelligence, that will hopefully be coming out later this year. Through it’s nuanced writing and brilliant ensemble character development, this cinematic show strikes the perfect balance between sci-fi, action, comedy and emotion. As a huge sci-fi buff, it’s so refreshing to get a show like this commissioned in the UK and I’m supposedly the first Arab Director to direct high-end TV in the UK. It’s always harder for women and ethnic minorities, which is slowly changing, so I was immensely grateful for the opportunity.
It’s been a terrific experience working with creatives who value the director’s vision, with a pre-dominantly diverse cast and a high-end budget that enables VFX, stunts, multi-camera, wirework, set-building and a 360 LED screen environment. However when ambitions are high, you always find yourself in the same place of feeling like you don’t have enough money and time, and concessions are always the name of the game as a Director who’s always striving for better.
When you’re covering five to six pages a day with kid’s hours, puppetry and multiple sets, time is your biggest enemy and you’re lucky to get more than two takes per setup if you want to make your day. This was also my first experience of working with multiple cameras, so embracing the imperfectness of the process was one of my biggest lessons. I grew up on David Fincher’s commentaries, a perfectionist director who controls every part of the process, hardly ever shoots handheld or multi-cam and does an insane number of takes – and I’m certainly not working at that level yet! At the end of the day you just have to do your best with the resources and time available to you, favour simplicity, trust your instincts and pick your battles wisely.
