'If gods are not dead yet, we will have to kill them': Waël Noureddine
Waël Noureddine shooting in Yemen. (Photo: Courtesy of Waël Noureddine )
Lowave, a publishing house specialized in
experimental cinema and video art, says that Waël Noureddine's
films "reveal what Italian film director Pier Paolo Pasolini calls 'civil
poetry', meaning literary descriptions and criticisms of real situations."
Impressed by his bravest short film so far,
"A film far beyond a god", I decided to interview this Lebanese
director.
1. In an interview for the International Film Festival Rotterdam, you said you "wanted to
kill gods, both ancient and recent ones." Why do you think God should be
killed?
God is
killing us every day, everywhere. Look at the wars and the blood spilled to
satisfy our gods. If gods are not dead yet, we will have to kill them in order
to emancipate and get free. Anyway, what is God? If we stick to
monotheism, in Hebrew God is written "Elohim", and Elohim in Hebrew
is the plural of Eloah (God).
Humans
created gods, not the opposite.
2. Talking with Haus der Kulturen der Welt about
your Lebanon trilogy you said: "One has a choice between army and
religion or religion and army". What would happen if religion was no
longer one of the two choices in the Middle East? Do you think it would become
a more peaceful region?
Not only
in Middle East, anywhere! If we clean ourselves from religion, we will live
better. Look the "holy books": go kill, go burn, go cut hands. Ok,
maybe sometimes they ask people for peace and love, so why to focus on
"kill and cut ..."? I reverse the question, why don't religious
people see that part of "hate and kill"? If they put aside their
books maybe we reconsider religion.
3. Do you
really think reminding Arabs about their polytheistic past would make them feel
less identified with Islam, less "green"?
I think
you mean "Muslims" by Arabs? And the answer is of course! Go ask any
non-Muslim what was Mecca before Islam? Many of them don't know, they think
Muslims created the Kaaba and the city. If you ask Muslims, they tell you:
Abraham rebuilt it at the same place where Adam built it. What a stupidity! Saudis
paid fortunes to make historical research in order to discover history and
destroy it!!! Look what (the terrorist organization) ISIS is doing in Syria and
Iraq? What official Islam has done since beginning: destroy civilization,
vestiges and replace them with ignorance and emptiness.
Quoting
from Noureddine's own movie: “For 1500 years Islam worked to blow down
Arabia’s history by confiscating it. The Kaaba in Mecca was not build by
or for Muslims: Mecca was the capital of the whole region, the economical and
cultural centre of a part of the peninsula. Kaaba was a temple for 360 gods,
and Hubal was the most important. Every year, pilgrims visited Mecca, walking
naked around the Kaaba (where Hubal was positioned on the roof) and they choose
the best poem of the year before writing it with gold at the Kaaba’s wall. When
Mohamed’s army entered Mecca, they destroyed all gods and decided that Kaaba
was to be “Allah’s house”. History is written by the winners and Hubal became
taboo… Why taboo? Because his heritage went to Allah. For those reasons I
wanted to make a film about Hubal, to break that taboo, to speak about what is
politically incorrect.”
4. Why
did you choose to shoot the film in Yemen, even though Hubal (the pre-Islamic
god whose story Noureddine sought to rescue) was worshipped in north Saudi
Arabia and south of the Levant?
Because
Saudis still execute "witches" in our days! So they would have no
problem in executing me if they knew I am shooting a film against their
believes. I wasn't scared, but I wanted to live more and make more films. I
can't go to Saudi Arabia, so I went to Yemen, where all the Arabs came
from.
5. In your film you talk about the economic interests of the Quraysh in the
worshipping practices at Mecca in pre-Islamic days. Is this reference a
veiled criticism to the House of Saud, the ruling royal family of Saudi Arabia.
Yes, and
to the Islamic-Arab imperialism. Before Islam the Quraysh controlled the
economy of the region, after Islam it seems that God gave them that right,
forever. They exert a strong power on Arabs and other nations in the name of
Islam. Look the Kurdish, they arrived to them with a Quran in one hand and the
sword on the other. "Become Muslim and learn Arabic or you will get
killed." And that is what happened to all others. I have lot of respect
for Kurds who rejected this imperialism and kept as much as they could from
their civilization, culture and language alive until today.
6. Can
you tell us a bit about your work as a poet? Where has it been published, in
what language?
I have a poetry book entitled "Slut City". I have been
published in Germany, Beirut and I know that an Israeli magazine translated it
from my (ex) blog and published it.
7. Are
war and the contradictions in the Arab world the subject of your poems too?
Maybe war had a deep impact on me. It is a hellish experience. When I
was a kid there was war, we saw death and blood and bombs until it became our
"daily bread".
Noureddine was born in 1978 in Lebanon, at the beginning of the South Lebanon conflict. It was an
invasion of Lebanon up to the Litani River carried out by the Israel Defense Forces. The conflict resulted in the death of
between 1,100 and 2,000 Lebanese and Palestinians, 20 Israelis, the internal
displacement of 100,000 to 250,000 people in Lebanon and the Palestine
Liberation Organization forces
retreating north of the Litani River.
8. What
projects are you currently working in?
I have many projects in
mind, I am finishing editing my last movie "Boombs" (Boobs + bombs = Boombs), it is about a
group of terrorists who are using girls after brainwashing them to commit
suicide, and I am preparing a new feature film about love and death.
________________________________________________________________________________
Waël Noureddine is a filmmaker, writer and
poet. From 1996 to 1999 he worked as a journalist for the Lebanese newspaper Al
Nahar. He has a degree on Film Studies from Paris Panthéon-Sorbone University
and also studied Theater and Journalism at the Lebanese University in Beirut.