A film student trapped by Syrian authorities in the besieged city of Homs tries to find a way out in “700 Days in Homs” by Sulaiman Tadmory and Ali Hakim.
The project is currently in development at Germany’s Hakim + König Movie, with Hakim heading to Match Me!, Locarno’s prestigious networking platform for emerging producers, which will take place between August and September.
Produced with Epikfilm, “700 Days in Homs” is inspired by Tadmory’s real-life battle for survival in a war-torn metropolis. “I lived through the relentless terror of the bombings in Homs, where worry and destruction were omnipresent,” he said in a statement. “‘700 Days in Homs’ captures the profound resilience and solidarity of young residents amidst the chaos, shifting the narrative from despair to hope. This film aims to amplify their voices and encourage international awareness, a testament to the unyielding spirit of the Syrian people.”
Journalist-turned-filmmaker Tadmory will co-write and co-direct the film with Hakim, whose debut as the lead, “Bonnie & Bonnie,” premiered at the Hamburg Film Festival in 2019. The conflict drama leads the event lineup of Hakim + König Film, an emerging production company founded by Hakim and Max König (“WaPo Bodensee”) that aims to tap into the “pop arthouse” sector in Germany and internationally.
Talking to Selection At the helm of Match Me!, Hakim said he wants to work on art films, “but find a huge audience for them.” “We don’t need to make films for a thousand people in theaters. We need to be in the huge cineplex with our films. That’s our unique selling point. It’s also essential for us to have numerous, common stories and not have projects that only work in Germany, a smaller market with fewer financing options.”
That desire to create films with broad appeal led Hakim to focus on “700 Days in Homs” amid the company’s growing portfolio of enhancements. “It’s our challenge to find something that touches people while also being entertaining. People want more than superhero stories, and with a really good team and a really good story, you can still entertain people with an arthouse film.”
Currently working on a second draft of the script for “700 Days in Homs,” Hakim cites major American films like Marc Webb’s “500 Days of Summer” and Christopher Nolan’s “Memento” as major inspirations for the film. “We thought of ‘500 Days of Summer’ because of the anachronistic way of telling the story. When I first heard Sulaiman tell his story, he was going from the future to the past, from one level to the next in a non-linear way, because that’s how the human mind works. I need to replicate that with our film and still have something a little bit more daring like Nolan did with ‘Memento.’”
Afghan-German filmmaker Hakim is one of 36 young producers chosen for the tenth iteration of Match Me! Talking about his expectations ahead of the initiative, the producer says that touchdown financing is not his priority when he is in Switzerland. “I am thinking long term so that I can build relationships with people who I know will trust me sooner or later. I need to learn from more qualified producers and see how they get things done in different countries. How do people finance their films? How are they engaging with new technologies?”
The know-how is a topic of great curiosity for the producer, who is quick to highlight how useful AI has been throughout his creative career. “The first thing I do before writing a project is to create a poster. I need to think about the film playing in the cinema. Then I start listening to music and building images with AI from certain references. I am a very visual author.”
“Before I fight a new technology, I try to think about how I can use it to make my stories better,” says the producer when asked about the controversy surrounding the use of artificial intelligence in filmmaking. “When I write a script, it usually takes me four days to work on a breakdown. Chat GPT can do it in two hours.”
“We’re also interested in AI dubbing and AI subtitling. I’m going to an AI subtitling convention in Berlin in September and that could expand our reach exponentially,” he added. “We’re thinking internationally here.”
700 days in Homs
AI-generated image, (Courtesy of Hakim + König Movie)
Opposite Ali Hakim on How AI Helped Him Imagine ‘700 Days in Homs’ first appeared on All celebrities.