Kenny Glenaan's first film, Gas Attack, won the Michael Powell Award for best British feature at Edinburgh in 2001. The actor-turned-director is back at the festival with Yasmin, the story of a British Muslim woman whose life changes in the aftermath of September 11. Written by Simon Beaufoy (The Full Monty), the film was developed out of months of research and workshops with Muslim communities across the North of England. It stars Archie Panjabi (above) in the central role, alongside veteran actor Renu Setna as her father, and newcomer Syed Ahmed, who was discovered during the workshop process, as her brother.
How did the idea for Yasmin come about?
What we wanted to do is a positive portrayal of British Muslim experience, post 9/11, as a way of almost putting your fist through this notion of Islamophobia that's grown up since [then]. We researched for about a year before we put pen to paper. The script was written very quickly in the end but we amassed so many interviews and incidents, and we ended up focussing on the North of England, in particular the mill towns. It seemed to be where the front line is on the back of the racial unrest in 2001. So then Simon Beaufoy came on board and I took him to people that I met - I said to him, you meet them, here's two big piles of research, can you make a film script out of that? And so he took all that away. So we haven't made anything up in the script - the poetic license is amalgamating all those stories and squeezing them into an hour and a half and into one family. Hopefully we're being as representative and as up to date as we possibly can be... what we were trying to do is give people a bit of dignity, really, without being too grand about it - giving people a voice. I think there's an invisible war going on in Britain today and I think it's primarily directed towards the Asian community and in particular Muslims. And I don't see it because I'm white, but some of the stories we heard were incredible.
Yasmin is one of several films at Edinburgh this year which is related to the 9/11 issue. Do you think this is a sign of more of a politicisation of British cinema?
I think you see a rash of films that are politically motivated coming out now, which I suppose is a reflection of film makers reacting to September 11 in some way and being a mirror of our times. What I am amazed at is that films like Yasmin will find it hard to get distributed. I think they feel there is a limited audience for that type of film. I would say everybody who went to see Michael Moore will get something from Yasmin, or the two million people who went on the anti-war demonstration. When you go and see a lot of mainstream films, which are mostly American, in your multiplexes, I think they are very politically motivated... it's for a white, male American audience, so there's a colonisation going on that we never hear [anything about]. Whereas we do something like this and get lambasted for having every 'ist' and 'ism' attached to us.
How did you find working with non-professional actors?
I'm an actor myself so I am very much into performance, probably to the detriment of the visuals. But I would rather lose a fancy shot and get another take for actor. I think the face is the best location in the world. I'm used to working with non-professional actors, I come from a theatre background and did a lot of mixtures [there]. When I got into working in TV, I worked on Cops and Buried, and that was a mix of actors and non-actors. I think what you get is a really interesting tone, deliberately blurring the lines between fiction and documentary. Non-actors break every rule in the book and I always think, I'm not going to tell them how to do it, because that鈥檚 fantastic! In a way they force the professional actors to come down a bit, and the professional actors force them to come up a bit, and we find a tone somewhere in the middle.
You won best British feature at Edinburgh with your last film, how does it feel coming back?
I'm delighted to be back at the Edinburgh Festival with Yasmin. I think it's very hard to make feature films in Britain, it's very hard to get the funding, especially for a project such as this - it's quite a hard sell - [and] we're just excited to see what the reaction is. I think there has been a period of introspection is post-September 11, and I get the impression the film is providing a forum for people not only to ask questions about the film, but also relate their own experiences. That's what's been happening in all the Q&A sessions. I think it's because people feel events in the world are outwith their control, and so in some way the film is giving a space for people to say, "my opinion is this". It's been an extraordinary reaction... I get the impression that the film world is a very competitive world, and it's great to get the chance to follow my own voice, because that's the only thing I've got to offer.
Having done a lot of TV directing, do you recommend that as a good route into film making?
Telling stories with a camera is a practical thing, I don't think there is anything mystical about it. You either put the camera in a certain place or you don't... obviously the beauty is what you can do within the frame and some people are amazing at doing that. One of my first jobs when I came out of the theatre was directing six episodes of Eastenders. I spoke to a film director that I know and he said, "My God, why are you doing that? You won't learn anything there!" In all honesty, I would say to anyone, if you get the chance to do anything, get in there and do it. It's like driving, there's no point in reading about it in a book. Get in the car and once you start stalling then you soon learn very quickly. Just get in there and do it.
Listen to a clip from the interview **Interview by Jen Foley.
