Hicham Ayouch, 32, is the recipient of this year's Sasha Grant, a $100,000 (Dh 367,000) award given at the Abu Dhabi Circle Conference to up-and-coming filmmakers. He will use the money to make Samba Do Maazouz (Maazouz's Samba), about a Moroccan boy obsessed by Brazil.
I was born in Paris to a Tunisian mother and Moroccan father. I speak French, Arabic, Italian and Spanish. I was very lucky to grow up in a very open-minded family. When you have the chance to receive a good education and your parents push you to read books and be curious, it's part of what makes you. Life is not just a question of talent, it's about social and economic background and people who support you through their love and care.
I was originally a freelance journalist working for TF1 in France. One day, I decided I didn't want to be a part of the television circus anymore.
It was actually thanks to Sundance. A woman named Alesia Weston who supervised my lab in Utah called the Circle and told them about me. She is like a guardian angel for filmmakers, one of these people who pushes and supports you, because as a filmmaker you need people to push you. When you are down, they tell you to fight. We are all like little children, like football players; we need our mamas to support us.
It was the same, except in Jordan we were in the desert eating camel. The people are amazing, they bring great screenwriters from all over the world and give you something more precious than money?they give you their time, advice and notes. All Arab filmmakers who have the opportunity to apply for Sundance should do it. The people from the Royal Film Commission in Jordan really took care of us. It was like family.
Maazouz is in a way a reflection of me. I have a lot of fantasy and images about Brazil like we all do-samba, the favelas, football; for Maazouz, the images are a way of escape. He grows up in a classic Moroccan family, and in Morocco, it is difficult for young people to breathe, like in most Arab countries. There is a lot of oppression-family, religious and political. A lot of people don't think they can think and feel for themselves, so the way Maazouz finds a way to feel, a way to escape, is through Brazil. It is the outlet to escape reality. I have been invited to go Brazil twice, but I won't go because I don't want to know the real image of Brazil - until I finish the movie.
I like Federico Fellini, Terry Gilliam and Paul Thomas Anderson. John Cassavetes is also great because all his movies are pure emotion, like Opening Night, and this is what I try to achieve on screen with my movies. I can see all kinds of films-big blockbusters to a small Uzbek film-I don't have a certain style or genre I like.
I don't believe in a certain style or way of directing. I just want to catch the emotion in a scene. For me, when I deal with actors, especially non-professional actors, I try to push them. When I'm on set, I can be very tyrannical-violent; sometimes I am hysterical, to get the emotion out of them. But let's say I am a generous dictator. If there is a sandwich, and it is between me having it or my technician, I will give it to the technician. I may fight with you, but at the end of the day I will kiss you on both cheeks, because in the end these are the people fighting for me and with me.
On Jupiter. Maybe they need some films there, because we always entertain ourselves with alien stories, but maybe they are the same and need us to entertain them.
