Meet Zeina Durra, Sundance's Most Fascinating Filmmaker

How did you discover these locations and little pockets of New York?

I just know them all. Most of the places I spent time in. The jazz club I go to every Saturday night when I'm in New York.

Even the Chinese gambling den?

Well, that one I made up. I was trying to... I mean, the thing about New York is that when you do go to those places, you actually do find interesting people. In most places it would just be lame people who are hanging out, especially in New York. You need to find the cool people, the interesting people. There are a lot of losers there, too, but I'm sure there were some interesting people in that bar that Asya didn't get to talk to that night. But that part I made up because I really wanted to make fun of all the complicated nights I had of getting in somewhere with codes and numbers and doors and trap doors and passwords.

How has your Sundance experience been?

I'm so exhausted. Everyone says the buzz is great, but as a filmmaker, it's really overwhelming having your film out there, and all these randoms have an opinion about it. My favorite part is when some of these randoms -- like really random people -- search me out. I had a really funny thing happen in the deli down on Main Street. Everyone somehow had been at the screening just before; not film people either, but regular moviegoers. Then there was this massive buzz: "We love your movie!" "Oh, what's the movie?" And back and forth. It was really funny! There was this little schoolgirl, and this old man -- not some film dude. It was really nice; that's what's been really special. And luckily we got a really good review in Variety today. You shouldn't really care what people think, but suddenly you can relax. Some people are getting it, which is great.

What are you doing next?

I'm making my next movie! It's fully funded! In Jordan. These cousins go for a funeral, and their grandmother... I mean, they're like my family: half-European, half-something else. They find Amman really stifling, and they go on a road trip. And it's through this road trip that there's political friction. It's like this film; there's a load of nutjobs. Everyone's coming out of the woodwork on this road trip, and you get to see different perspectives and conversations and the interactions -- just the texture that you get from this kind of story and this region and these people.

Well, hopefully I'll see you back here next year.

Thank you! Did I help you with my answers?

Yes, you--

Because I really do believe contradiction is everything. The problem with a lot of cinema these days is that people are encouraged to simplify. Life is interesting because it's contradictions. That's also why The Imperialists are Still Alive! is such an interesting title. When you think about it, they're in America, and the imperialists are still alive, and it's they're battle against the imperialists. But Javier and Asya are very fair Mexicans and Arabs. That's the upper classes. They themselves come from a place that subjugated people.

And I guess what I was trying to say earlier is that their upper-class families in America and Europe have benefited from that very imperialism.

Exactly, and yet they're struggling against it. That's the complexity they live with. My grandfather fought against the French and was jailed. He was really anti-imperialism and a big socialist. But I was in the airport once, and my Arabic is very bad. I was speaking English to the guys, and they could tell from my family name. They asked, "Are you Said Durra's granddaughter?" And I said, "Yes." They couldn't stop laughing, because he was so big in the education system, and had built all these schools and obviously taught these guys about being against imperialism and the French and English. And here's his granddaughter, who's this posh English girl who can't speak Arabic properly. I was brought up abroad because my father ran a news agency in London. The headquarters were in Beirut, and because of the civil war, all the television news had to go to London because it was safer. Then I end up with this English accent and being surrounded by the very people we had fought only 80 years before. I laugh about it, but that's the reality.

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