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GLORIA FILMS, IN COPRODUCTION WITH KATUH STUDIO, DUBLIN FILMS, LES FILMS DE LA CAPITAINE, LIMAN FILM, ZDF/ARTE, AND WITH THE PARTICIPATION OF SOPHIE DULAC DISTRIBUTION, PRESENT MY FAVORITE FABRIC A FILM BY GAYA JIJI SCHEDULED FOR RELEASE IN THE SUMMER OF 2018 Design graphique : synopsis Damascus, March 2011. in the midst of the rumblings of revolution, nahla, a young woman of 25, is torn between her desire for freedom and her hopes of leaving the country through an arranged marriage with samir, a syrian who has emigrated to the United states. However, samir prefers her younger and more docile sister, Myriam. Consequently, nahla grows closer to her new neighbor, Madame Jiji, who has just moved into her building in order to open a brothel. inTErviEW WiTH GAYA JIJI Why the title My Favorite Fabric? Is there a common point that links these Is this self-censorship at the heart of Nahla’s Because the film is about the senses. Fabric experiences? inner revolt (which moreover is represented touches the body. My Favorite Fabric refers yes. That of a search for identity, and i’m not in surprising ways) and her search for to the heroine nahla’s desire that her body be just talking about sexual identity. We lived in fulfillment (which passes through her touched by a particular fabric, a desire that is a society that repressed our desires, all our sensual contact with fabric)? a choice. Her choice. My story concerns this desires. Consequently, living in a country like This type of restrictive society forces you girl’s relationship with her body. Everything syria was difficult for women. First there is the to question yourself: Who am i? What do i stems from this. it is a sort of affirmation, a perception, or rather the “non-perception” really possess? you realize that you possess way for her to say to herself and others, “This of our sexuality, the obsession with female nothing. you have nothing and, based on that touch is the one i truly desire!” virginity, where one absolutely cannot have awareness, one is pushed, like nahla, to try sexual relations before marriage, etc. These everything because you have nothing to lose Would you say that the film has a specifically are things i lived with, and they are at the heart and one must remain alive! To follow through Eastern and feminist approach to sensuality? of the film.i n it, i develop my relationship with with things to the very end. As a woman filmmaker from the Middle my sexuality. How i discovered the questions East, the question of the feminine is key. it of the flesh. What does it mean to have a Nahla certainly has a strong personality. Is is obviously an intimate one. As far as that sexual relation with a man? To take pleasure she dissatisfied? is concerned, My Favorite Fabric is a very in it? But, in a broader perspective, and first she has a rather tiresome job. Things are personal film. i am nahla! and foremost, it is an affirmation of the place complicated with her family, the rapport accorded to us, and consequently about between these women. The father is dead. What was the situation in Syria, in Damascus, who i am in a society where i’m deprived of it’s a very closed, very feminine world. Then at the time when your film takes place? everything. i have no freedom of expression. she is “presented” to a potential husband. she When i began to write the film in Damascus, i don’t have the physical freedom to do what thinks to herself, “Fine, perhaps this will be a at the end of 2010 through 2011, the civil i want. i don’t even have the right to dream, way out.” But, deep inside, she knows that it war was beginning. Writing had become because the most favorable dream that a makes no sense, that it’s not by participating my only escape from the overwhelming woman of the Middle East can have is to get in an “arranged” marriage that she will find fear that gripped us all. i participated in the married and have children. freedom. so she seeks another way. once very beginning of the revolts. it was clearly again, she feels she has nothing to lose, so she impossible to gloss over this context, to sweep What were these forbidden or impossible should follow through on her wild ideas, face it under the rug. Unconsciously the violence dreams that led to My Favorite Fabric? herself, her demons, her fears. The heroine of the war, the oppression, the rebellion – all My dream was to make films, which is very is trying to find her place within her family, had a bearing with the inner violence which i complicated in syria. i felt that i did not even and, by extension, within her country. she chose to commit to paper. This film became have the right to dream these grand dreams, is a woman who wants freedom, and, even my intensely personal interpretation of the even less to express them, to proclaim what i more, she wants power! And this manifests beginnings of this terrible conflict. it’s not felt like saying. Even on a political level, one by having sex for the first time, without any about a documentary vision, but is well and does not have the right to an opinion. And i am romantic overtones. Furthermore, there is truly my interpretation, my reflection upon extremely interested in politics! The same is even a certain malaise during this scene. in this this situation that we see, for example, through true of religion. There is not much that can be case, this young woman is also manipulative, the character of the soldier. personal history said. This was really difficult for me to stomach but this is necessary. and political history cannot be separated. it within my family, with my mother – above all was necessary to show that life went on, but with my mother. That is what i’ve recreated in Why did you choose to have your story take at what price? the film, this relationship which is demanding, place in a world of women? and paradoxically tender as well, so quite i come from a milieu where women have a great What was the genesis of the story in this complex. it’s a love-hate relationship. deal of authority. They are a major presence. film? in fact, this is part of the schizophrenia of My personal experience, along with that of my Eastern society – within the family, women girlfriends led to my thinking on this subject. have a lot of power, they make decisions, and yet, at the same time, they are deprived of many things, namely sexual freedom. Consequently, i was always surrounded by our society imposes upon them. They are Eastern actress would accept this?” Moreover, strong women. Men were present, but on the no freer than the women. The suitor in my the film really doesn’t stand up without those periphery, in the background. Everything was film, with his mind full of archaic principles, scenes, it has no meaning. subsequently, all based upon decisions made by the women. despite his youth, develops a fascination with my attempts at casting syrian actresses fell in the film, each character in this family is nahla. she does not correspond at all to his through. no one wanted to perform those defending something. The mother defends expectations, and he is afraid of her. He is also sex scenes. However i do live in France and tradition. The little sister is the revolutionary taken aback by her, and tempted by her way i met Manal issa. i had seen her in Danielle of the family, a tomboy who articulates a of being, to the point of entering her world, Arbid’s Peur de Rien and Bertrand Bonello’s very overtly determined discourse, whereas even if only temporarily, because he does Nocturama, two films where i felt her the heroine, nahla, seeks to define herself not possess the same courage as she. in this performance was as natural as it was full of in a more intimate manner. in the end, all aspect, i find that women as a rule are more life. she is a true actress and a real professional of these characters are representative of courageous than men. who gives her all. Manal completely owns her syrian society at the time, victims who work. she possesses a true understanding of rebelled on various levels against her métier and she was ready to the totalitarian regime, but also jump in, and not only regarding the against a suffocating family question of nudity. structure. Each one is persuaded that they are making one of the What particular methods did you others happy. The three male make use of as a director? characters in the film merely one of my choices was to film gravitate around this maelstrom the “in camera” scenes in closed of feminine desires and power. environments. The camera thus acts as nahla’s internal voice. When There is also Madame Jiji, the she is in her family apartment upstairs neighbor, who also downstairs, i use still shots to manifests a certain authority but convey the sense of straitlaced is a free woman. What is her role? tension between the characters. i created a personality completely As soon as we head upstairs to opposite to the mother. This is a Jiji’s, the camera is freer and there woman who has created a space is more movement.

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