Naji Abu Nowar talks about exploring the Bedouin way of life in his first feature Theeb

Naji Abu Nowar’s short film Death of a Boxer was screened at the Dubai International Film Festival in 2009, but the road from that to making his first feature film proved to be long and winding.

Along the way, there was a series of scripts that never got enough funding and ideas that floated off into the wind – but then he met the producer and co-screenwriter Bassel Ghandour.

“He wrote a short film in 2010, which he sent to me and I loved,” says Nowar, who lives and works in Jordan. “The first thing I wrote in 2003 was this kind of Bedouin Western, which wasn’t very good but I realised that this world was ripe for cinema.

“A little while later, I was in the desert and looking at the landscape and this idea suddenly clicked and I immediately called Bassel asking if he wanted to work together.”

The result of their collaboration is Theeb, which was developed by Sanad, the development and post-production fund of the Abu Dhabi Film Festival.

Theeb will premiere at the Venice Film Festival, which begins on August 27, and has been selected for the Orizzonti competition section of the programme, which is a breeding ground for new talent.

Set in Arabia in 1916, the film tells the story of two brothers living with a Bedouin tribe in a forgotten corner of the Ottoman Empire, an area that is now part of northern Saudi Arabia. After the death of their father, the elder boy, Hussein, tries to teach his brother Theeb (the Arabic word for wolf) about the Bedouin way of life.

Original article by Kaleem Aftab

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Naji Abu Nowar talks about exploring the Bedouin way of life in his first feature Theeb

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