Produced by Malibu residents, the film “David and Fatima” features Malibu actors Martin Landau and Colette Kilroy.
By Melonie Magruder / Special to The Malibu Times
Four hundred and eleven years after Shakespeare published “Romeo and Juliet,” the Bard is alive and well.
But in the vision of Malibu filmmaker Kari Bian, the star-crossed lovers are “David and Fatima,” and Verona has become modern-day Jerusalem, awash in the ongoing Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
“I went to Israel as part of a project for a nonprofit I work with,” producer Bian, who was born in Iran but moved to America as a teenager, said. “I saw so much hatred, I couldn’t believe it. They live next door to each other, but they won’t look at each other. They would rather kill each other than try to get along.”
Such entrenched hostility was the fertile setting for the story of David, a young Jewish boy with dreams of being a photojournalist, and Fatima, the dutiful Muslim daughter who cannot help but fall in love with her father’s worst enemy.
The film underscores the fact that this ancient animosity is passed through generations with mother’s milk when David and Fatima are born on the street because each child’s father refuses to yield passageway to the other when rushing their wives to the hospital for delivery.
“Why should I move? You move,” one father snarls to the other as their wives are in the throes of imminent childbirth.
This encounter sets the tone for the rest of the story. When David and Fatima meet, 18 years later, they are doomed before their first melting glance.
Director Alain Zaloum, a graduate of USC Film School, was born in Cairo into a Christian family before moving to Canada as a child.
“I grew up when Egypt was at war with Israel, and my father had very bitter feelings,” Zaloum said. “When I was shooting exteriors in Israel, you felt that intolerance everywhere. People don’t have much hope. They don’t know if their home will be there the next day.”
Intolerance was the operative word for the filmmakers, who do not slant the film’s sympathies to one side or the other. Zaloum said if there is one message in “David and Fatima,” it is that the intolerance has to stop.
“When you have a culture where hate starts before you are even born, it seems hopeless,” Zaloum said. “Maybe acknowledging that intolerance is the first step to hope.”
Producers Bian and Tavia Dautartas, both Malibu residents, worked “twenty-four/seven” to get “David and Fatima” to the screen, penning a working story two years ago, and putting together a filming crew in record time.
The budget for the film was $600,000, but you wouldn’t know it from art director Tim Worman’s subtle recreations of Jerusalem’s streets and Gaza’s desert villages. Beyond a few exteriors done in Israel, the film was shot entirely in Los Angeles.
Malibu actress Colette Kilroy plays David’s mother in the film. Kilroy said she couldn’t believe the transformation of Boyle Heights’ warehouses into Middle Eastern enclaves.
“I have three sons, so the power of a mother’s love in this story resonated with me,” Kilroy said.
All the American actors trained extensively with dialect coaches and hit the history books to bone up on the Middle East.
“I went to the Chabad in Malibu to speak with the rabbi and talked a lot with some Israeli people,” Kilroy, said. “It opened my eyes, because you see miscommunication and distrust even on a Little League Baseball field. Tolerance has to start at home.”
The two young stars of the film, Cameron Van Hoy and Danielle Pollack, both from New York, threw themselves into preparations to depict a world very foreign to their personal experience.
For Pollack, it was her first professional film work.
“I’m Jewish, so it was very strange to see the other side,” she said. “But I hope this film helps people to see both sides.”
She also said she got a “crash course” in acting in two days of work with Academy Award-winner Martin Landau, who plays a maverick rabbi who has lost his faith.
“It was the best two days of my life,” Pollack said.
Van Hoy had the opportunity to work with veteran actor Tony Curtis, in a heartbreaking scene where the older man advises the younger to follow his heart.
“You can’t negotiate issues of faith,” Curtis’ character says. “And your first love is what you keep looking for the rest of your life.”
“This movie shows a darker side of reality,” Van Hoy said. “On one hand, you want to love truly, but there is also so much violence. It will only change when there is a conscious enlightenment of mankind, like Rabbi Schmulic says in the movie.”
“David and Fatima” has a scheduled run at Santa Monica’s Laemmle 4-Plex Theater through July 25, then Bian and Dautartas are looking toward national distribution, a challenging task for independent filmmakers.
Ultimately, they want to see it distributed in Israel, though they are under no illusions that their film will change much in a land divided beyond cultural reparation.
“They’ve believed the way they do for centuries,” Dautartas said.
“Maybe they accept suicide bombers as a daily part of life,” Bian said. “But I don’t accept it.”
“David and Fatima” is now playing at Laemmle’s Monica 4-Plex in Santa Monica.