Edgy, Funny, Fascinating: Director Zeina Durra Breaks Through

What does the title The Imperialists Are Still Alive! mean?

It's really hard to explain. I couldn't find a title that would justify the '60s kind of energy that Asya has. [In fact, the phrase is a line from Godard's film La Chinoise -- Ed.] Which again is part of the problem of being in this Middle Eastern intelligentsia as a child, because your parents often come from these '60s ideals. If you look at something like the PLO [Palestinian Liberation Organization], the PLO was a non-religious organization. Now everything's super-religious. All the movements are religious, and the PLO was this secular, quite rock-and-roll movement -- whether you agreed with their violence or not. The people in the PFLP [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine] would get married and hang out in nightclub, which you really wouldn't see Hamas doing. So there was this whole '60s Arab nationalist kind of thing going on, and if you're a not a product of that, but you haven't lived in the Middle East, you still tend to have those intellectual ideals. That's what you had growing up.

That said, with Asya coming from an upper-middle-class background--

Upper class.

Right. An upper-class background. She's a radical conceptual artist coming from a background you wouldn't expect, and even they're radicals--

You wouldn't expect it in the U.S.. But this is the interesting thing -- and the hardest thing about making this film: People think that you can't be upper-class and left wing. But one of the best writers about socialism is Tony Benn, who's a British aristocrat. He's a aristocratic as they come; I think he's a viscount. But he's the most left-wing guy. It's a very American thing to assume that wealth takes you away from socialist ideals. It's super-complex, but when you're living in a capitalist society, you can still have socialist sympathies -- regardless of what your background is. And a lot of people in the Middle East do have socialist sympathies. Maybe not so much any more since the failure of pan-Arab nationalism, but there still is. And as an artist, most artists tend to be more left wing. There are always contradictions, but my film is all about the contradictions. Life is full of contradictions.

The first shot of the film is very shocking. It also seems to announce the uncompromising nature of what's to follow. What was your intention?

I just had this image in my head. I was like, "How do I introduce this girl?" So I decided to introduce her through her work. This is her work. That's it. I really didn't intend it to be anything else. And I never believed people when they used to say that; I'd say, "Yeah, whatever, you totally intended to shock." But I really did feel this is the way the film had to start. And as an image, it tells so much about Asya.

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.

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 their 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.

This is an edited version of an interview that originally published during the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.

[Top photo of Zeina Durra: Getty Images]

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