Shamim Sarif

Life Is a Highway

2010-04-27T11:37:00.000-07:00

So last week’s travel adventures under the cloud of volcano ash cured me once and for all of any wistful romance for road trips. After a 14 hour train ride through Germany, Switzerland and Belgium, I ended up in London. I was joined by my wife who had, with the help of the indomitable Cynthia Pinet, made it through France to listen to my TED talk. The idea of 18 minutes to an audience that was NOT comprised of 1000 screaming lesbians was making me nervous, frankly, but Hanan arrived even more nervous after Cynthia took her on the Paris metro.

I had thought my speech went down well, but the reception that Leonie Casanova got made me re-evaluate. By the time she started on ‘Holy Daughter’, the whole place was clapping and when she shook her booty, it erupted. That woman is a superstar waiting to happen.

The next morning, Hanan and I woke up, exhausted from watching Leonie dance, but ready to drive back to Switzerland to get the children, whom we had left yodeling somewhere on a mountainside.

So we set off on our road trip. I slipped on my shades, popped in a cool music CD and prepared to live a day of ‘Thelma and Louise.’

That day lasted around 30 seconds. Until Hanan started the car. She switched off the CD.

‘We have work to do,’ she said, handing me my laptop. I resisted the urge to start a fight this early on, and determined to salvage the feeling of the open road, the burning rubber, the breeze in my hair…The car stopped. Outside a Pret a Manger.

I walked in, shades on, trying to maintain the sense of coolness. That was fine for my order (‘coffee please’) but it was impossible to be cool while ordering for Hanan (‘skinny, dry cappuccino, quarter of a shot of coffee, lots of foam, a bit of chocolate on the top, and a sprinkle of brown sugar please’). No matter. Armed with coffee-scented foam, we set off again.

Just as I was getting into it, we stopped again, this time for petrol. Then for road works. After a couple of hours, Leonie called, eager for word about life on the open road.

‘Where are you?’ she asked. ‘Paris, Calais?’

‘South London,’ I replied.

It got better because Hanan agreed I could play the CDs of the first round of edits of the I Can’t Think Straight audio book. How bad could it be listening to Lisa Ray for 12 hours, right? Listening to that first moment when Tala and Leyla meet, that first, poetic description of Tala from Leyla’s perspective, I was taken with the romance of how I first felt when I met Hanan, now that it was all immortalized forever in a novel. I turned to her, dewy-eyed.

‘And what did you think when you first met me?’ I asked her gently.

‘You looked hot,’ she replied.

As Romeo once told Juliet. We made it through several chapters and the Eurotunnel, and emerged in Calais. Immediately, our satellite navigation switched to a sexy French voice (the British sounds like a headmistress, and not in a good way) but guided us to tiny village roads.

‘How quaint!’ I said, as we crawled along behind a tractor for 12 miles. Hanan gritted her teeth and started calling Cynthia Pinet in Paris, three hours away.

‘Where are we?’ she asked Cynthia. ‘We just passed a farmhouse and a bakery.’

Heroically, Cynthia didn’t hang up, but actually located us, found us directions and sent them to Hanan’s phone, while I wrestled with a map and insisted I knew the way. After 2 more hours of country lanes, I realized that I had programme the sat nav to avoid motorways.

I tried to find a way to break this to my wife, while in a confined space with her. I blurted it out all in one go, while I desperately tried to find a highway.

‘One thing I ask you to do. Just one,’ she said, somewhat savagely, but then she had been driving for 6 hours. ‘And the rest of the time you’re sitting there doing nothing!’

That was the real trouble. I addressed the issue, trying to reassure her and prevent myself having to use my laptop.

‘Creative people need time to think. To take in sensory perceptions and absorb and allow them to come to fruition in a beautiful novel like The World Unseen,’ I babbled in explanation.

She handed me a pen. ‘Write your blog.’

Which is how you come to be reading this, conjured from half-written streaks of inspiration on the road. And if you think this was fun, I’ll leave you to imagine what it was like repeating the trip back but with two hyperactive boys in the back seat…

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

2010-04-17T13:36:00.000-07:00

Iceland always had a hint of arctic romance to me, but since this volcano has stopped flights in and out of the UK and Europe, I’m over it. We’re stranded in Switzerland, which is not such a hardship, frankly, except that I needed to get to London by Monday to give a talk at TED. Considering other TED speakers have included Al Gore, Gordon Brown and Bill Gates, not to mention other novelists like, oh, Isabelle Allende and other film directors like that unknown guy James Cameron, I thought I should make an effort.
Well, first up, a huge thank you to Elaine at BA Special Services. She’s booked and rebooked flights but she can’t disperse volcanic ash, so we decided to try trains. Ha. It took 90 minutes to get through to Eurostar and when I asked for a train in the next two days, the man laughed harder than someone who’s seen me dancing.
Next we tried booking a rental car.
‘There are no cars available here,’ said the man.
‘In the whole of Montreux?’ Hanan asked, disbelieving.
‘In the whole of Switzerland,’ he replied.
I prevented Hanan from kidnapping a fast-looking Swiss cow for me to ride and, heroically, she managed to source the last seat on the Eurostar from Brussels on Sunday night. And so we hurried off to the local station to find a train ticket to Brussels. We joined a queue of other stranded people who shuffled around without hope, like extras in a war movie. When we finally made the counter, Hanan took control of the skeptical Swiss clerk and within moments I was set up with an itinerary worthy of Matt Damon in the Bourne Identity.
‘But there are 5 train changes, and you have 5 minutes to do each one,’ said the clerk, horrified, in French.
‘No way!’ I said.
‘Book it!’ cried Hanan.
So this epic journey will begin at 8am in Montreux and end (I hope) at 10pm in London. Hanan has typed me an itinerary, since I have 5 train changes and she is terrified I will end up in St Petersburg, addressing a group of confused Russian oligarchs. She is also busy filling a backpack with food, as she is concerned I will expire without a cheese sandwich every 2 hours. I don’t know if I will expire, but I am quite sure that by the time I pull that last, ripe, sandwich from my bag somewhere in Germany, everyone else on the train will.
In a fit of longing brought on by my imminent departure, I made the mistake of taking the boys to play mini-golf. There were 20,000 people in front of us (all adults – what grown-ups play mini-golf?) I never thought I’d be relieved to see my own child fall into a water hazard, but when Luca slipped into the mini-lake at the 14th hole I took the opportunity to bundle them home. Where Hanan was busy setting my Iphone alarm to ring every hour so I don’t miss a train stop and writing out To Do lists so I don’t get bored or have time to miss her. Nice try…but I think I will.

Extreme Sports

2010-04-09T11:18:00.001-07:00

So I found myself suspended 300 feet about ground in the Swiss alps with nothing but pure mountain air between me and certain disaster. What happened, I hear you cry? Well, I was on a chair lift, on my way to watch Ethan and Luca skiing.
OK, I know that riding a chair lift isn’t officially an extreme sport, but it really should be. Yes, the seats were like big old park benches and yes, we had safety bars and yes, we were hardly up the mountain, but I found it slightly concerning to see the ground fall away beneath me, even though the view was breathtaking.
I screamed all the way up. People were turning in their seats, craning their necks to see who was being murdered. Even Hanan, sitting next to me, the woman who would dive into quicksand to save me, was looking the other way, studying her nails and pretending that she’d boarded the ski lift with me by chance.
‘You know,’ she muttered, as I stopped to take a breath between screams. ‘I did this ride with Lisa Ray last year and she screamed with joy.’
I paused, stung.
‘How do you know I’m not screaming with joy?’ I sniffed, trying to stop weeping from fear. Below me the little houses looked like Monopoly hotels.
‘You’re yelling ‘I’m going to die, we’re all going to die!’ Hanan pointed out.
Well, I didn’t see that as unarguable evidence but I shut up all the same.
When we got up there, it was stunning. Mont Blanc in the distance. Glistening snow kissed by rays of sun. Hanan thrust a camera into my hands.
‘You need to get pictures of the boys as they come down the slope,’ she said. Now they are both Black run guys. I watched them reach the top of the hill and got them lined up in my viewfinder for the trip down. But then they started skiing. It was like they were auditioning as stuntmen for a James Bond photo. They moved faster than a lesbian who’s spotted Lisa Ray. Within 20 seconds, they had zoomed past, leaving me with pictures of an icy (and empty) slope, and a face full of sprayed snow.
‘I hope you got their good sides,’ Hanan said sternly.
‘Er…I think I did,’ I replied, stuffing the camera back into my bag. The boys headed up to the big slopes, and we headed into the café for breakfast. After all the calorie-burning of my yelling ascent, I was in need of whatever they had, and what they had was a foot-long baguette slathered with butter and cheese.
That fortified me nicely for the next (figurative) mountain I had to climb which was to brainstorm with Hanan about our brand new business idea…Well, 6 hours flew by, after which it was time to collect the boys, and head down the mountain. In the car, they were so exhausted that they both slept, giving us time to listen to business audio books. I ventured to ask whether we might have some music.
Hanan regarded me disapprovingly.
‘When I did this trip with Lisa Ray,’ (I was getting slightly sick of this opening salvo, but my own chair lift screams were still ringing in my ears, so I kept quiet) ‘we listened to Robert Kiyosaki talking about the difference between assets and liabilities.
It was true. I remembered welcoming them home from that particular trip the year before. I remembered the horror of finding that my creative partner-in-crime (Lisa, not Robert) had been transformed during a morning with Hanan, into a woman who could talk about nothing but the importance of building assets.
I listened to the CD obediently. And it was inspiring. I do love having our own businesses. But it’s a tough road. A road without a day off. And so I suggested to my lovely wife that she consider taking this Sunday off. Which meant, not opening, touching or even looking at her laptop.
It was how I imagined it would be asking someone to read ‘I Can’t Think Straight’ but skip over the sex scenes.
‘Why?’ she asked, looking at me as if she was considering having me committed.
‘So you can rest your mind. Get a change of scene…’ I was losing her. ‘Come up with another new business idea?’ I added.
Her eyes gleamed. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Maybe just for that one day.’
Now I did scream with joy. ‘Great! We’ll have a fabulous day,’ I assured her.
‘We?!’ She shook her head. ‘No way. You can catch up with all your work while I’m with the kids.’
I’ll see you all on Monday. For now, I’m heading back to the chair lift...

Chinese Whispers

2010-04-03T11:26:00.000-07:00

Bonjour from Switzerland. Where I have been thinking about...China! From Gong Li to Dim Sum we all know how many delicious things China has to offer. But we have been overwhelmed by the growing support that we've been getting for so long from the Far East in general, and China in particular. The idea for blog translations started in China. And the donations that have been coming in for Lisa Ray and the audio book project has been from all over the world, but with a definite majority from our Chinese fans.
We had our first inkling of the simmering Chinese fan base when Sheetal mentioned that she had been mobbed by a group of excited Chinese girls shouting 'Leyla! Amina!' in a shop outside LA. She barely escaped with her clothes intact, but more than that, we also get a lot of orders on the Enlightenment Website from China, and no matter how long those Chinese customs agents take to deliver things, they keep coming! My personal theory is that somewhere in Beijing, there are nightly screenings of 'I Can't Think Straight' for assorted postal workers and if they had any decency, they'd invite us all over there for a Q&A and some noodles. I've never been to China, though Hanan (obviously) has visited Shanghai in her capacity as International Woman of Mystery.
And so to the screening of ‘I Can’t Think Straight’ in Lausanne. I love all these towns along the lake – Montreux, Vevey, Lausanne...they’re all beautiful old buildings facing the water, and I’ve always nurtured a romantic notion of myself, like a character in an Edith Wharton novel, just sipping tea and sheltering from the Swiss sun with a parasol. Anyway, Hanan took the lake road, and as we entered Lausanne, a stunning grand hotel rose up on one side.
‘Imagine having dinner on that terrace,’ I said. ‘Overlooking the lake.’
‘It is amazing,’ Hanan confirmed. ‘And the food was quite good too. Though it was a long time ago.’
Of course she’d eaten there. When am I going to stop being surprised?
‘Who were you there with?’ I asked through gritted teeth. ‘Fiance number 256?’
‘Yes, when I lived here. A couple of different times.’
Now, I’d known that Hanan had a fleeting skirmish with a fine hotel school here when she was 17, but ‘a couple of times’?
‘It’s much more romantic here and now, with you,’ she offered, just as a grinding noise made us get out of the car. We had a flat tyre. Now, I have no idea how to change a tyre, and I had a feeling that Hanan, raised with more members of staff than the Queen, might not be au fait with using a jack and a spanner either. We eventually found someone who would come out and help. And we stood by the side of the road, trying to recapture the romance. It started raining. I peered down the road to a lone Italian restaurant.
'Why don't you go have a coffee?' I suggested. 'I'll wait in the car for the mechanic.'
Hesitant, off she went. I studied the rear view mirror for any sign of a Swiss with a tool kit, but through the wind and the driving rain, only one familiar person came into view. Hanan. Walking carefully up the hill, soaked, she was balancing two china coffee cups, sugar and milk on a tiny tray. Breathless, she fell into the car.
‘I know it’s not the hotel terrace' she said. ‘But I wanted to have a coffee with you.’
She’s good, I have to give her that. The rain-flecked coffee was the most romantic I'd ever had. And we made it at last to the screening, had a marvellous time, then went back to get our car which was in a hospital car park ('It never closes' the screening organiser had told us). Well, it was closed. I considered sending for wall-scaling Chinese lesbians, but it was late. By the time we talked our way out, and crawled back home for over an hour on our dodgy spare tyre, I was ready to spit.
Back at home, Hanan's Uncle Tony has arrived in the house next door. He manages to combine all the debonair and yet completely eccentric elements of Hanan's family. He invited us to dinner, and we ended up in a restaurant called ‘Bavaria’ (tip – there was no dim sum) and he and I promptly ordered the house special – a huge breaded veal portion accompanied by a German beer. Now of all the things Hanan would not consume in a famine (and it’s quite a list), veal schnitzel and beer are right up in the top three. She ordered the fish. It smelled fishy. She sent it back. Waitresses panicked, the German chef glowered and Uncle Tony offered Hanan some wine.
‘I don’t drink, Uncle,’ she said. ‘I never have.’
‘I think you used to. You probably forgot.’
With admirable restraint, she declined the wine and ordered a portion of breaded chicken. It arrived a few minutes later and it looked remarkably like veal. She sent it back. Now the waitress was weeping and the burly chef came over to argue that veal was as white a meat as chicken. Hanan raised an eyebrow.
‘It comes from a cow,’ she informed him.
The third (vegetarian) main course made the cut, and we beat a hasty exit, watching for cleaver-bearing cooks as we left. Ah, the peace and quiet of the Swiss mountains. There’s nothing like it.
And now, I notice you’re all asking for the wildest things we’ve done while making our movies? I’ll keep that for another blog...

It's Raining Women, Hallelujah!

2010-03-14T10:11:00.001-07:00

Barbra Streisand said it best: ‘The time has come’. And what a great moment as Kathryn Bigelow received the Best Director Oscar. Now, I remember watching a very early movie of hers called ‘Blue Steel’ around 20 years ago. Apart from the not entirely pleasant realization that I can easily remember movies from two decades ago and I was already an adult then, my propensity for Jamie Lee Curtis dressing in a cop uniform should have given me a signal that I was not destined to marry one of the suitable boys my mother kept pointing out to me…
But I digress. People have asked me in interviews about being a female film director, or a lesbian filmmaker, or a South Asian filmmaker, or on unbearably politically correct occasions, all three. And my instinctive response is to say, I am a filmmaker first and foremost, irrespective of my gender or colour or orientation. Not many people ask James Cameron how it feels to be a male, heterosexual director, I imagine. But the reality is, it does matter – for all these under-represented minorities, and it matters that a woman won that Oscar this year. Because the photos of Ms Bigelow holding that statuette for directing sends a positive image into the minds of people who just aren’t accustomed to seeing women directors.
That’s obviously the high end of gender discrimination problems. Maybe it is slightly tougher making it in the film industry as a woman, but that’s a problem Hanan and I feel privileged to have, when a quick scan of the International Herald Tribune reminds us that girls in India commit suicide rather than face harassment after reporting sexual abuse. Or that mass rape in Congo has become a disgusting fact of life. Or that, as so many of you on this page have told us, women all over the world don’t have the freedom to love and live with the people they choose or do the work they desire.
So I was all the more aware of International Women’s Day this year, which took place on Monday. A slow, simmering growl hummed in the back of my throat as I contemplated the sheer waste of women’s potential, of 50% of the world’s human resources, caused by politics, and certain outdated traditions and beliefs. Then, as Hanan drove the boys to school, the subject of Women’s Day came up. They both looked confused.
‘When’s Men’s Day?’ they wanted to know.
Hanan explained that men didn’t really need a day (and refrained from suggesting that in many parts of the world, EVERY day was men’s day) and that once upon a time some people had thought women were not equal to men and shouldn’t have the same rights.
Ethan looked horrified, as if someone had suggested that owning a Ferrari was uncool.
‘That’s ridiculous,’ he sniffed. ‘Of course women are equal.’
And, done with such an idiotic conversation, he turned to look out of the window.
When Hanan called to tell me this, I lost the growl and gained a big smile. If we can raise another generation like that, we won’t need a Women’s Day at all. Then we can just focus on raising awareness for slave-driven writer/directors who are free to be lesbians but aren’t allowed out of the house till they’ve finished a script. If you think I’m being slightly melodramatic, well, I am, but I don’t think I ever told you how my second novel, Despite the Falling Snow, got finished.
I was pregnant with Luca, something which happened after Hanan wore me down for three years about having a second child (I hadn’t noticed she was saving Ethan’s old clothes in the top of the wardrobe) and while in my heart I was deeply in awe of the miracle of life growing within me, in my body I was a huge, whale-like person with a swollen nose and a newly-found ability to choke on my own spit. It wasn’t a blooming kind of time for me, more a big wilt. But I worked through the book and was around 3 chapters away from finishing. Anyway, about 2 weeks before I was due to pop the baby, I suggested to Hanan that we pack a bag for the hospital.
‘No way,’ she replied. ‘If I pack your bag, psychologically, you’ll think it’s fine to go into labour. And you haven’t finished writing your book yet.’
Hmm. I sulked and went back to reading ‘What to Expect When You’re Expecting.’ It hadn’t mentioned the swelling nose or the spit thing but it did assure me that when I had my first contraction, I should relax, take a bath, and potter around for a day or so till they became more frequent. When they came every half hour, I should go to the hospital. I figured there would be time to pack then.
I had been slightly concerned that I might not recognize a contraction when I had one but I found it was like not recognizing an elephant standing on your foot. I knew. I breathed. I looked at the bath but it didn’t appeal. Hanan was at work, so I figured I would think about my book and epic love, betrayal and…the next contraction hit. I looked at my watch frantically. That had been 5 minutes. The next one came but 3 minutes later and I picked up the phone, wailing to Hanan:
‘You didn’t let me pack, and the baby’s coming!’
Well, we made it (with luggage) and it took another 24 hours for Luca to join us, by which time I was alternately snarling and weeping at anyone near me and holding a nurse hostage with a wet flannel until the doctor came back with the epidural.
As for the novel…the thing about Hanan is that she always has a Plan B. Not a month later we found ourselves in South Africa, at my parents’ house where a large and ample maternity nurse arrived, swept Luca into her ample arms, and allowed us to sleep all night. Waking refreshed, I found my computer and unfinished manuscript waiting for me on my dad’s desk, requisitioned by Hanan for a higher purpose...Despite the Coming Baby, I finished the book.

Lille, Je T'aime

2010-03-07T12:21:00.000-08:00

Well, I reckon I hit the apex of lesbian celebrity in a bar in Lille when, at 1am and after merely one glass of champagne, I glanced up to see an image of myself projected onto the ceiling. Beside me Marion, a long-time FB fan and trainer of birds of prey, was explaining to me how she could train crows to flutter by when Katya dies in the movie of Despite the Falling Snow. As if this was not surreal enough, around me were 100 French lesbians and most of the younger ones were attached to my wife. Seriously, the post-Oscar parties look like a Women's Institute tea dance next to lesbian night life in France.
I decided that the charity screening (of The World Unseen) was a huge success, judging by my very rigorous criteria, because:
1. Everyone stayed till the end
2. Everyone asked philosophical questions in French
3. Hanan didn’t nudge me in the ribs for making inappropriate jokes during the Q&A
4. I received yet another bottle of Bordeaux from a FB fan.
NO! We must delete that last requirement. You are all too kind, and I am getting too drunk (albeit on fabulous wine). Anna Scott was the culprit this time, and she also bid an extremely high amount for a signed poster that was donated by falcon-trainer extraordinaire, Marion. As you know, I appreciate a bottle of wine more than most lesbians appreciate flat shoes, but now even I must protest and say – thank you and no more! You all do far too much already, what with donating to audio book projects, following my every blog and (in some unfortunate cases) hitting on my wife. I really can’t accept more.
This whole event was organized beautifully by Cynthia Pinet and her brilliantly supportive partner Sandrine and her mother and family. Cynthia has expressed interest in becoming a mini-Hanan, which can only bode ill for me and having two of them around will either win me an Oscar and a Nobel Prize within 5 years, or leave me a quivering wreck who stares longingly at her Bordeaux collection. Certainly the signs for Cynthia’s ambition are all promising, since she not only arranged the screening and sponsors but overfilled the cinema, produced her own press booklets, made up stunning posters with gorgeous close ups of Sheetal and Lisa, set up post-screening drinks in a fantastic bar, gave me homemade foie gras and Sauternes, and managed to schedule 4 hours of press interviews for me. Armed with a charming translator, I waited for my first journalist question, knowing that in France it would undoubtedly be a rare and heady mixture of philosophy and edgy intellectualism.
‘ello, Shameem,’ said the journalist, in a promising French accent.
‘Bonjour,’ I responded suavely, with all the French I could muster.
‘Everyone wants to know. Did ze Tiger catch ze Chicken?’
Incroyable, as they say in France. You work your socks off for years writing books and directing movies aimed at suggesting the loftier ideals of humanity to a wider audience, and one FB posting reduces you to a 'poulet'…I jest. Not about the question, but about the reduction, because after that it was all terribly highbrow and deep, and four hours later, I was instinctively responding in French, and my bewildered and exhausted translator started turning it into English. At that point we knew it was time for a drink, and before I could scan the room looking for stunning teenagers who might potentially chat up Hanan, I was approached by a lovely woman (somewhat older) who told me I was beautiful and more than that ‘parfait’. Well, I’ve been telling Hanan I was perfect for years, so I was quick to give her my best ‘I told you so’ look, but was interrupted by the sound of my admirer crashing into a wall.
‘I don’t think she can see very well,’ Hanan suggested.
In exchange for that comment, I woke Hanan up at 8 am after a 2am finish. And speaking of being older, I reminded her of the previous week, when at Leonie Casanova’s gig, we had met a couple of other members of this page. Over a drink, one of them asked us if we had watched any good lesbian films recently. Hanan’s brow furrowed as she cast her mind back, then brightened:
‘Yes, Desert Hearts!’ she replied.
A look of polite disbelief crossed their faces. ‘That was 30 years ago…’
Luckily we were saved by Leonie coming on stage and enthralling the crowd with her magical songs including a very cool re-working of ‘Broken’ from The World Unseen. Flushed by her mid-week success, Leonie rashly accepted the request to spend Sunday morning with the boys but luckily we returned from Lille by early afternoon, plenty of time to untie her, un-gag her, and assure her that parenthood really was worth it. Was she convinced? I can’t say, I only know she departed with a rather too jovial ‘Au revoir, les enfants!’

What's Cooking?

2010-02-26T13:40:00.000-08:00

Sorry I'm late in blogging but I've been on Hanan time, which means I've lived an entire month in the past week. I'll spare you the worst whining, but somewhere in the manic chaos we began intensive prepping for the kid's cooking show. Apart from working with crew and on shot lists, this involved rehearsals with my enchanting offspring. I sat down at the head of the table, one of the boys on each side of me, just like it once was with Sheetal and Lisa on set during The World Unseen and I Can't Think Straight. And there the resemblance ended. At least, I don't remember Lisa pounding the table and screaming Sponge Bob quotes, while Sheetal laughed so hard that she snorted and fell off her seat. But I may have missed that rehearsal. Anyway, by the time we got to page 6 of my lovingly crafted script, Ethan groaned and looked up:
'I have too many lines. You need to take some of them out.'
I fixed him with a beady stare. 'I'm the director,' I said. 'They're staying in.'
'I don't want to learn them.'
'Do you think you're Tom Cruise?' I asked him imperiously.
'Who's Tom Cruise?' he asked.
Luckily Hanan stepped in before I could give my own demonstration of how Tom dealt with mouthy colleagues in 'Collateral'.
Other than that, the week included two trips to the theatre, which was a rare slice of heaven as we got to see Kim Cattrall shine in a Noel Coward revival (who knew she was British? Not me!) and Alan Bennett's 'The Habit of Art' which was a rich examination of what it involves to be an artist. Mostly it involved an obsession with time-keeping, sex, vocabulary and lots of space to think in. I hoped that might inspire Hanan to cut my schedule a bit, but that part passed her by. Add to that a ton of work, two children, out of town friends, and then a visit from Patrizia, the first FB fan to breach Enlightenment security and get into our flat. I make it sound as if she abseiled in like an extra from Mission Impossible, when she was invited, after she offered to take photos of us. Her portfolio was so impressive, and I did meet her at Leonie's gig, so I felt assured she was kosher, but she has a disconcerting habit of taking photos with both eyes open. You know when you close one eye so you can concentrate on the other one looking through the viewfinder? She doesn't close the other one. Which felt like being watched by someone who ought to be asleep. Anyway, I am assured by her that I am better-looking in person (a backhanded compliment, but I'll take it).
After that it was a rush to get to school for Luca's parent-teacher conferences. The art teacher was enraptured by him.
'He sees things other kids just don't see,' she told me.
Hmm. Like lint-covered chocolates under the sofa. And the tooth fairy. And when Mummy is on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Then this morning Hanan asked me whether I wanted to record the kid's cooking show theme on Tuesday or Wednesday. Considering we're only shooting tomorrow, I was impressed.
'Cooking show song? Who's writing it?' I asked, intrigued.
'You are,' she said blithely.
I was driving, but that didn't stop me closing my eyes and weeping.
'What kind of song?' I sobbed.
'You're the writer. Something hip. Funky.'
Well, first off, I knew what she meant by hip and funky, but no-one under 40 has used those words in the past decade unless with heavy irony. I'm not the right age for hip and funky. I fall asleep in the theatre...
'I can't write a whole song in a genre I don't know in two days! You have no respect for my artistic process!' I wailed.
'Of course I do,' she replied, listening to phone messages and texting at the same time. 'I have no doubt you can do it.'
And then I suddenly knew why the chicken crossed the road. To get away from the tiger's To Do list...

The Eye of the Tiger

2010-02-20T04:56:00.000-08:00

Have you all finished laughing about that Chinese New Year photo of the tiger (Hanan) and the chicken (guess who)? It’s all right for you, you’re not having to sleep with one eye open in case you get turned into a bucket of KFC. In between chuckling at the image, Hanan actually has the nerve to suggest that I am the tiger in our relationship but nobody knows it. Well, she’s right about that because neither of us knows it for a start. Exhibit one: a telephone interview I just did with a magazine in New York. It all started so well, and I hit my stride, looking out of the window at the Swiss mountains and speaking eloquently about filmmaking. The editor asked if we’d shot The World Unseen and I Can’t Think Straight back to back.
‘Not at all,’ I began. ‘Because there was a process…’
I was interrupted by a reflection in the window waving manically. I turned to see Hanan holding up a pad of paper on which was written ‘YES, WE DID’.
‘Hello? Are you still there?’ the editor was saying.
‘Er…Yes, I am, and you know, I think we did shoot the movies back to back,’ I stammered. I could hear the interviewer wondering how someone with so few brain cells could direct traffic, never mind a feature film. I negotiated the rest of the call by trying to ignore Hanan’s notepad which held a succession of commands from ‘TALK ABOUT MUSIC’ to ‘YOU FORGOT TO MENTION DOWNLOADS’ to completely unrelated topics like ‘DID YOU FINISH THAT SPREADSHEET YET?’
I never did get to that spreadsheet because we had to drive over to Lausanne for a screening of The World Unseen. We went a little early because we had a quick meeting with one of the heads of TED, the organization that focuses on 18 minute speeches of originality and genius from brilliant people and also, now, from me. I’ve been invited to talk at a TED Salon event (a mini-TED) in London. The tiger in me is thrilled (a small part) and the chicken in me is flapping. Luckily, I will also have a lion with me, because Leonie Casanova has been asked to provide the only music performance for the evening, and I figure that as long as Hanan has her notepad and a marker she can flash me notes ('THERE'S SOMETHING IN YOUR HAIR!') right from the audience.
Back to Lausanne. And apparently it was actually back to Lausanne for Hanan, International Woman of Mystery, because as we drove through it she kept pointing out the places she had lived.
‘Lived?’ I asked. ‘You lived in Lausanne?’
‘Three different times,’ she assured me.
When will I learn? Paris, Washington, Texas, Japan…Hanan has lived in more places than a professional nomad. The spreadsheet I really need is one that pulls together all this residency data and confirms my suspicion that, if she’s lived in as many places as she says, my wife must really be 80 years old.
So we arrived at the screening, and I have to confess I was a little apprehensive because frankly, a screening of a South African period love story to 50 lesbians in Switzerland didn’t sound super promising, but it went brilliantly well. The organizers were very welcoming, the screening was packed with people, and they loved the movie. I was apprehensive about a Q&A with a French-speaking audience because I can barely order dinner in French, but everyone laughed a lot, and I like to think it was because my eloquence and humour translated well, and not because my British French made everyone fall about. Most importantly, we met a FB fan – Sylvie – who drove 2 hours from France with her husband to see us and she brought an amazing bottle of Bordeaux for me. And three boxes of Swiss chocolates from Jackie in Zurich were waiting for us at the cinema. Now you all know how much I appreciate a great bottle of wine not to mention chocolate, and I am overwhelmed with your collective generosity, but please, please, don’t keep bringing us things – just meeting some of you wherever we can is a gift in itself (that sounds a bit Hallmark card-like, but hey, it’s true).
In other news, and because so many of you have kindly asked, Ethan made it into a new school in the autumn. Out of 800 kids, he was one of 100 who made it in. I have to go now because to honour his achievement we are having him cast in gold for a tasteful, life-size statue that will sit unobtrusively in the middle of our living room. Either that, or we’re taking him out for pizza. I’ll let you know which next time…

A Romantic Education

2010-02-11T02:15:00.000-08:00

So Ethan, our eleven year old, is into his second week of sex education classes at school. Over dinner, I tried not to choke as he described with a combined sense of awe and disgust how babies were made.
'And then they showed us a movie,' he said.
'You mean with diagrams? Animation?' I asked, hiding just a touch of anxiety.
'No, with real people,' he replied. 'The man's name was Bob.'
And was he pretending to be a plumber come to fix some nymphette's 'pipework' I wanted to yell? Or a 'pizza delivery boy' with extra salami on the side? I suppressed my mounting hysteria, and asked him how he found the movie.
'It was gross.'
That relieved me, as did the assumption that Ethan seems to have made, that sex was just recently invented and therefore could not be something his mummies knew anything about. And he could be right, because on Saturday night, after wrestling the kids to bed, we were sitting side by side on our laptops when Hanan gave me a narrow look over the tops of her glasses. I shifted guiltily, even though I hadn't done anything except sneak a few messages onto my FB page instead of studying a spreadsheet.
'What?' I asked.
'I think it's our anniversary,' she said.
Yes. You have romanticised us, written emails eulogising our union, and here we were, two workaholics, who had forgotten our own anniversary. Hanan looked at me, hurt. She hummed 'You Don't Bring Me Flowers' under her breath. I felt terrible. Fourteen years. OK, I had to admit I didn't even know it was February, being mentally still floating in mid Jan, but it was no excuse. She peered at her calendar.
'Maybe it's tomorrow,' she said, offering us both an elegant way out. I agreed wholeheartedly, and we decided that Sunday would begin with romance and end with passion.
So how I found myself the following morning in the same cafe as Hanan, but at a separate table, is a whole other story. Suffice it to say, I sat with my laptop, and she sat with her ex-boyfriend, having answered a last minute distress signal. This was hardly the romance-filled breakfast we had planned when we dropped the boys off for tutoring, but I tried to get over it, and tried not to eavesdrop and promised myself that tonight would be the moment. We got through dinner, baths and bedtime for the boys with only minimal threats, I worked like mad to finish the blog book edits, and showered, emerging determined to prove that I was not an unromantic loser. The lights in the bedroom were already off. The macbook was parked, charging. It was all so promising as I slid between the sheets. A smell of Vicks and a heavy snore was my first indication that something was amiss. A tousle-headed boy in flannel pyjamas lay in the middle of our bed.
'I'm sick,' Ethan murmured. 'Can I sleep with you?'
I felt his forehead. It was hot, but not that hot...Hanan looked at me like the self-serving mother I was. I sighed and cuddled up to the Vicks and snoring. What's an anniversary anyway? Just a date. Every day could be our anniversary! Luckily I was asleep before that thought had finished...
And we had a romantic moment or two listening to the divine Leonie Casanova performing last night at the Cobden Club.
The evening started less than promisingly when we started off for Kensal Rise with Hanan's aunt in tow. Stopping along the way, we picked up an old school friend of Hanan's, Shehkar. Now Shehkar is a stunning, Amazonian goddess of a woman who wafts into London every so often and eats dinner with us while regaling us with stories of the kind of escapades with cowboys and rugby players that Ethan was watching at school. Now you won't find a more open-minded woman than Hanan's aunt, but she's still an aunt, for heaven's sake, so when Shek opened the door of the car and sort of fell into the back seat in a champagne haze, I sensed trouble.
'Darling, I went to the most informative sex course this morning,' was her opener.
I offered her a meaningful look and a raised eyebrow, but she was well past subtle signals, and launched into a rhapsodic description of the latest sex toys. Hanan hit the gas pedal but it was still an entertainingly long 15 minutes till we reached the club.
Leonie was phenomenal, singing 5 of her own songs plus a cover (sadly not the Karen Carpenter song I'd petitioned for) and I also got to meet more FB fans, including Sue James, supporter extraordinaire, and photographer Patrizia from Italy. I get a little shy when faced with FB fans (or sex education classes) but thank you for being there, and for coming to introduce yourselves. I love this new tradition of a fan popping up wherever we are. Next up - a screening in Lausanne next Thursday. The challenge is laid down...see you there.

An Examined Life

2010-02-02T13:59:00.000-08:00

It was some wise guy like Socrates who said 'The unexamined life is not worth living', but after much meditation, I have to conclude that what he actually meant was 'The decaffeinated life is not worth living'. Hanan almost willed me to go back on coffee and wine (moderately, of course) after my third bout of spontaneous weeping and my seventh day in a row snapping at the kids like a demented piranha. And so a glorious, coffee-filled end to a very long week, frankly, which began with the two of us standing in sub-zero temperatures to watch Luca playing football in shorts. We waved his tracksuit pants at him, but he refused to leave the pitch. Hanan's eyes narrowed, she gave me the nod, and like a well-oiled machine we invaded the pitch and wrestled him into the pants. Yes, he was mortified, but they were already losing, and with a lot of therapy he'll get over it. From there, it was a week of four hour exams and school interviews for Ethan. Everyone told us he should brush up on current affairs. So I interviewed him.
'What's the recession?' I began.
He looked at me blankly 'Is it a place?'
'Hmmm. OK, where was there an earthquake recently?'
He shrugged.
'London!' shouted Luca. 'I saw the table wobble, I did, Mummy.'
I put him in front of the news and went back to work on my new book - a collection of last year's blogs, along with around 80 never-before-seen photos. The best part was sorting through all those behind the scenes shots from The World Unseen and I Can't Think Straight, and it's nearly done, but in the meantime I have fallen behind my deadline for the video competition judging. I was watching them last week, sort of scribbling comments on a random piece of paper, when an email from Aida popped into my Inbox, containing a spreadsheet listing all the videos and comments from her and Hanan. In the rest of her spare time, Aida has been dealing my books for cash from the back of her car in response to stunning demand from our new posse of uber-fans in LA. Anyone can make a mail order purchase - now the really cool thing to do is meet Aida in a Starbucks parking lot. Can a drive-thru Enlightenment kiosk be far behind? Film fans of good taste could call in an order for a Combo Special (a DVD box set) or the Super Combo (box set plus book) or the Make-Your-Own Movie Special (director's commentary and a year with Hanan). Well, I'd love to think about this more, but I have a lot of videos to watch, all of them cut to Leonie Casanova songs and I don't want to miss hearing 'Little Feeling' again...and again...and again...

On The Wagon

2010-01-27T00:44:00.000-08:00

I apologise for not blogging, but I got sick. Just a cold, though I milked it enough to earn half an hour watching the food channel. It wasn’t a Norwegian lesbian sneezing on me. No, I simply gave up coffee and alcohol 112 hours ago (but who’s counting?) and I’ve never felt worse.
What would induce you to do such a rash and foolish thing, I hear you ask. Well, Hanan made it sound so good at the time. It was all about cleansing and getting in shape, and clearing our minds and kidneys and I walked taller for a while, and felt fabulous. Then Leonie Casanova incited us to trek to North London for Caribbean food and a pub in Camden for a concert, and as I walked past the bar, I didn’t care that I had the liver of a 20 year-old, I just wanted a glass of wine. Thank goodness for Nadine Khouri, who was performing upstairs. As soon as she got on stage, my over-clean liver was forgotten in the pleasure of listening to her songs. If you’ve seen ‘I Can’t Think Straight’, Nadine wrote and sang ‘Number One Boy’ and ‘Underground’ in that movie and also sang the breathy vocals on ‘Mirror Mirror’. She’s a cross between a shy folk singer and a super-cool rock star.
I suspect my cold really started when we attended the last day of Shiva, the Jewish prayers for the mother of our friend. It all went fine through the prayers, and started to get dodgy when we all got up to mingle. Someone brought the Orthodox rabbi over to meet Hanan and two other Palestinian friends who were there, somewhat obvious and awkward amongst the yamulkes. The rabbi shook hands warmly, and turned to me.
‘Are you Palestinian too?’ he asked. I shook my head.
‘I’m just married to one,’ I said in the enigmatic way that I tend to reserve for high-level religious leaders.
‘She’s married to me,’ Hanan clarified loudly.
The rabbi, to his credit, rubbed his hands together and proclaimed that things were now getting interesting, but there was no time for him to delve into lesbianism, Palestinian or Israeli, because Hanan interrupted to say that she had one question for him. I prayed it wouldn’t be ‘Who played the lead in ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ and it wasn’t. Instead she asked how he saw the Middle East conflict being solved.
Clearly, he had no concise answer, but spent a good twenty minutes trying to articulate one, during which I beat a hasty retreat home nursing a politically-induced headache. Hanan followed about half an hour later and sat down with a stack of business cards.
‘Who carries business cards at a Shiva?’ I asked her.
‘Apparently, everyone,’ she answered. ‘I have to email the Rabbi and the Israeli Ambassador. They love the TedxHolyLand idea.’
My wife, creating peace and clean organs wherever she goes. In the meantime, I’ve been invited to give a TED talk of my own, the full 18 minutes, at TED Salon a mini-TED event being held here in London in April. And Leonie has been asked to provide the entertainment section. It’s a real honour, and I am more than a little awed by what I have to do. Maybe I’ll get Leonie to speak while I strum ‘Little Feeling’ in the background. With a glass of wine beside me.

Bad Education

2010-01-18T12:21:00.000-08:00

We started the weekend on Friday at a Jewish cemetery in North London at the funeral of the mother of one of our dearest friends, also the Exec Producer of 'I Can't Think Straight' and 'The World Unseen'. Standing in mourning in the London rain allowed us to support our friend, think about her mother’s life and contribution, and use that time of reflection and silence that we rarely get in our daily lives to reflect on how blessed we are.
Less than 48 hours later, I was struggling somewhat to hold onto that perspective as Hanan and I sat in Pizza Express surrounded by 6 eleven year olds hyped up on excitement and Appletiser. Yes, it was birthday party time. Look, I still remember the younger years, when we were left slack-jawed from exhaustion after 25 three-year olds and a clown who was clearly tired of life had left. So a pizza with kids who can feed themselves and take themselves to the toilet, followed by Avatar in 3D, was not so bad.
As I arrived home with the kids to cut a cake, Hanan was leaving to sit shiva for the third day in a row since the funeral. By the second day she’d been formally introduced to the rabbi (he was taken aback but recovered well), and by day three she was well versed with the Orthodox method of seating (women upstairs, men downstairs).
‘Is Mama going to the synagogue again?’ Luca asked.
That’s something you don’t hear too often in a Palestinian home, I’ll bet.
In other news, I took Luca to yet another school entrance exam this morning. We sat in a waiting room with a hundred other little boys, most of whom had a copy of a 700 page Harry Potter book under their arms. Meanwhile, Luca looked out of the window and counted ducks:
’26, 27, 28, 29… 40 ducks, Mummy!’
I smiled and tried to ignore the sympathetic glances from other parents. Hey. The thirties are not all that great anyway.
We arrived home to find Ethan finally more talkative about his school day, but that may have been because he had his first sex education lesson, something I’d hoped he wouldn’t have till he was thirty. I know, I know, but it’s odd when your own children, those cute, chocolate-smeared, honey-scented, chubby-cheeked bundles, start sprouting hair in places other than their heads and smelling like they actually need their daily shower.
‘What did they teach you?’ I asked, narrow-eyed.
‘The boy’s thing went huge, like this,' he explained, miming something that looked like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
I refrained from grimacing and nodded, trying to look understanding.
‘And the girls’ boobs got huge too.’
I made like I was a yogi or a therapist and adopted an inscrutable expression. ‘And what did you think of that?’ I asked.
‘It was all gross,’ came the reply.
I breathed a sigh of relief. For now. Then he whipped out his homework which was to write about someone he’s proud of.
‘I chose you,’ Ethan said. I glanced over my shoulder, but Hanan was still mourning with the North London Jewish community, so he clearly meant me. I wiped a tear from my eye and hugged him, then he set to work on his pre-assigned questions.
‘What year were you born?’
‘Don’t you know?’ I asked.
‘1924?’
I made a mental note to stop using the lavender shower gel and corrected him.
‘Where you born in India or Africa?’ he asked next.
‘Err, England, actually,’ I said.
‘And you’ve written two books.’
‘Three.’
It was as if we’d just met. I don’t want to know how it’s going to be when Hanan gets back from synagogue duty. He won’t even recognize her…

How To Plan a C-Section

2010-01-12T07:05:00.000-08:00

It's been a week since my last blog. I know this because the last thing I hear every night and the first thing to assail my delicate ears each morning is the sound of Hanan's reproachful voice saying 'You didn't write a blog, today,' in a tone that suggests unforgivable slothfulness on my part. I missed blogging. But I was busy working through January's To Do list (see last blog) and each item was something like 'Write Two TV Shows'. Anyway, I had some time to consider my blogless state as I sat in New Scotland Yard waiting for my fingerprints to be taken. 'What happened?!' I hear you cry. Did Shamim go crazy after watching 40 fan videos all cut to 'Little Feeling' and take a baseball bat to Leonie Casanova? Did she get arrested selling Lisa Ray's hair as paintbrushes? Not at all. I just need an FBI report for Canadian immigration (Because I spent a year studying in Boston. Is studying English Literature in America a criminal offence?) and to do a report, the FBI need prints.
So I presented myself in a box-like room before a terse woman who, I'm guessing, hadn't seen daylight since 1963. No computer. Only a box of rubber bands, a huge selection of rubber stamps and an impressive magnifying glass. It was like Sherlock Holmes had never left. I was processed and the woman took up the magnifying glass and peered disapprovingly at the edges of my fingerprints.
'You've got no deltas,' she said irritably.
I tried not to feel inadequate as I rubbed at my ink-soaked fingertips with a wipe.
'What's a delta?' I asked politely.
She looked at me over the top of her glasses as though I was a rare breed of idiot.
'The mouth of a river,' she said. I swear. The woman at the next table muttered 'Ridges on the sides of your fingers.' They printed me again. Out came the magnifier.
'The FBI will probably send these back,' she warned. 'Your deltas aren't clear.'
'You know,' I suggested. 'You should issue a little handbook to criminals. So they know how to leave their fingerprints correctly.'
Boy, I was popular after that. But I avoided arrest and solitary confinement, and got home in time to make chocolate cakes with Ethan, whose 11th birthday is tomorrow, set a test maths exam for Luca (they both have three hour long exams coming up for new schools) and catch up with work stuff with Hanan. So the next hour went something like:
Ethan: 'Mummy, where's the whisk?'
Luca: 'Mummy, does 24 divided by 2 make 53?'
Hanan: 'Shamim, did you finish the TV show/novel/edit/script?'
But as I watched Ethan making the cakes, all grown up, I realised that I was thinking all the things my mother used to say. Not the stuff about eating bran and always wearing a thermal vest (she only takes her's off for a week in August) but about time passing so quickly. That we grew up so fast. Was it really more than 11 years ago that I sat in the obstetrician's office with Hanan planning Ethan's birth? I could still remember the excitement and the uncertainty, the thrill and the panic. That is, we were thrilled, and the doctor was panicked, especially when Hanan whipped out her Palm Pilot (remember those?) and told the doctor she'd prefer the C-Section on a Thursday.
'Why's that?' the doctor asked.
'So I can be back at work on Monday.'
The doctor had laughed quite hard before she realised that Hanan was being practical, not witty. It was a pleasant little trip down memory lane for me, and when I returned to the present day, misty-eyed, I found myself encrusted with icing, facing a seven-year-old who couldn't understand why 15 was an odd number ('It's not odd, it looks fine, Mummy!') and a wife who had not only clearly mellowed in the last ten years but also had given me all of this. The cakes, the questions, the books, the movies, the sleepless nights with hungry babies, the joy of doing what I love every day. And she doesn't care that I don't have deltas on my fingerprints. What more can a girl ask for?

I Really Think I Would Turn Into a Pumpkin

2010-01-04T12:18:00.000-08:00

In the Sarif-Kattan household, New Year’s Eve suffers from the same syndrome as pierced ears. I digress, but by now, who cares? So when I was around 14 and my younger sister wanted to get her ears pierced, I had a moment of stunning clarity, like one of those kung fu slow motions in a Crouching Tiger film, where I realized that drilling a hole in your ear lobe is just…well…odd. It felt bizarrely random and frankly, quite daft. Now some of you may be piercing aficionados, and I do not expect everyone to abide by my rare moments of lucidity. Every man and woman for herself and her happiness – I doubt any of you would find my anal timing of toast, egg and tea at breakfast very worthwhile, but it pleases me (when it’s right, and trust me, it’s not easy) so who am I to cast aspersions on needles through body parts? Do you know, I forgot why on earth I started this topic. Oh, New Year’s Eve. So the same thing happened about 15 years ago, when I was granted the revelation that NYE was a somewhat arbitrary date on which some people who are long dead decided that we must all stay up till midnight, get drunk and hug the person next to us. And it occurred to me that I have much more chance of hugging the person next to me (Hanan) if I am sober, and awake (ie much before midnight). This is my long-winded way of excusing the fact that a) I slept through the turn of the millennium and b) I was in my pyjamas at 9 pm, while Hanan read me her month-by-month goals for the year. It went something like this.
Hanan (reading): ‘January – edit the cooking show. Shoot another cooking show for kids with the boys. Finish script for Despite the Falling Snow. Write new pilot for I Can’t Think Straight TV. Pre-production for Dreaming Spires. Script for next movie…’
Shamim (weeping): ‘Wait a second. Are we on December 2010 already?’
Hanan (shocked): ‘I’m only on January 15th…’
Naturally, I was exhausted by 9.30 but overcome with mists of adoration for my wife (still reciting March’s goals – a new novel, since you ask) I decided this would be the perfect time to overwhelm her with romance and seduction. To this end, I surreptitiously removed my socks (it was cold, OK?) and tried to look inviting. She glanced up from her goal-reading. A gleam hit her eye. It looked promising…and the bedroom door burst open revealing a crying child with an aching ear. Well, it was a long and stormy night, and instead of a night of passion, I revisited in my mind the previous afternoon.
Some good friends in LA had told us that some old friends (and they did mean old) were visiting London and would we check in on them.
'Maybe we should call them,' I told Hanan.
'I already did. We're taking them to tea,' she replied. 'In an hour.'
They were two fabulous women, one a movie star from way back, the other a Hollywood choreographer and I loved every minute.
'What did you direct, dear?'
'The World Unseen,' I ventured.
A frown from the actress. 'Sounds like a Greta Garbo movie.'
Anyone who starred in films from 1940 to 1960 and then did multiple episodes of Murder She Wrote and Falcon Crest is fine by me. I asked the choreographer (who winningly referred to herself as a ‘hoofer’, a word I’d only heard in a 1938 musical) what her favourite work had been.
‘The Oscar show. I had to choreograph ‘Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head’
That was around 1969, the year I was born. Hanan looked uncertain. Before she could ask if that was a Beyonce song, I stepped in.
‘From ‘Butch Cassidy’?’ I asked. ‘It won the Oscar that year didn’t it?’
Hanan stared at me, and I could see the fear in her eyes that she was married to someone whose cultural references ended in 1970. Yes, while you all were out partying on New Year’s, I have spent my time watching old movies (and listening to goals). And you know, I did hit midnight once, a few years back with Lisa Ray in Switzerland, watching a new movie. Hmm. Midnight, with an actress (and my wife). That counts for something doesn't it?

Clumsy...but Sharp

2009-12-27T11:47:00.001-08:00

Christmas comes but once a year, and Hanan is one person who remains grateful for that. My wife was staggering around the living room at 7am gathering used wrapping paper, as the boys played with their presents. Bent double, clearing up after the kids at the crack of dawn is bad enough, but it also meant she didn't notice Ethan's new remote controlled helicopter heading straight for her curls. There may be more stomach-churning things to watch than whirring blades whipping through extremely curly hair, but I can't think of one right now.
'My head!' Hanan cried.
'My helicopter!' yelled Ethan.
'My scalpel,' I called.
It took me a solid five minutes of unravelling to get the helicopter blades separated from the curls, after which Hanan was in need of Christmas spirit more than I was, except she doesn't drink. That didn't stop me cracking open a bottle before I attacked the chicken carving with gusto. Just the week before, I had received a late birthday present from my sister Anouchka in the form of a knife skills class. I had visions of placing Hanan against a wall and stunning our friends with a display of blade throwing that left every hair on her head untouched and ready for altercations with flying toys. But the class was all about cooking - my second favourite subject (after eating). Suffice it to say that we prepared and enjoyed a three course meal that was positively crammed with chopped, cut and sliced ingredients, but my favourite part was jointing a chicken. Yes, my days of reaching over, grabbing a leg or a breast and pulling are over, at least when it comes to roast fowl. Feeling quite superior about my general kitchen abilities, I got a bit blase with the knife by the time we got to slicing mangoes, and I sliced into my finger instead. As much as this was shocking to me, it was quite conceivable to my lovely wife, who explained to me that while I have a vision of myself in my own mind as something of a female James Bond (panther-like reflexes) the reality is that I am closer to Mr Bean.
Feeling a little aggrieved, I asked her to prove that assertion (even though the first and last time we did an aerobics class together 13 years ago remains a mortal stain of shame on my lack of rhythm).
'On the set of I Can't Think Straight' she replied. 'I hired a runner just to follow you with a fire blanket and a first aid kit.'
'That was three years ago,' I said defensively. But Hanan was ready with the more recent example of the shoot of 'Middle Eastern Flavours', the new cooking show.
'I can't believe I would suggest you direct anything that involved naked flames and sharp knives,' she said, clearly still upset with her own lack of judgement.
'I didn't notice anything fall, or break,' I returned.
'Because I was behind you, catching everything,' Hanan said.
And that's the thing, you see. She has that Bond-ness in her. She can drive up a mountain, listen to educational CDs, make To Do lists and admire the scenery all at the same time and still cling to hairpin bends like white on rice. I know she probably did sense a falling light from the side of her eye and whip out a hand to catch it while I bounded over to the production designer, oblivious. Perhaps that's why I got one of the best Christmas presents ever, in the shape of a leather backpack that can hold everything I own in one go (so I don't forget my phone, keys or computer each day). But I can't avoid the fact that I just found one of her presents in the back of the cupboard because I forgot I'd bought it. But you know what I decided? I may tap dance (or fall down) to the beat of a different drum, but no-one knows how to handle a (chicken) breast like me...

Have a Hairy Holiday!

2009-12-20T11:42:00.000-08:00

So Lisa Ray goes into hospital tomorrow for the stem cell transplant. Long phone calls between her and Hanan, filled with vision and practicality in equal measure, and shorter bursts between Lisa and me discussing our future life eating steak and reading books in Argentina, which I think Lisa fell in love with on her recent trip. I wanted her to try Hanan’s stem cells, mix them with her own, just to see what a driven, over-achieving actor with curlier hair looked like. But she has plenty of her own so she needs no bodily parts from Hanan or anyone else. In fact, with typical generosity of spirit, she’s sending us a Fedex.
‘Don’t send anything,’ Hanan commanded.
‘What is it?’ I said, excited. ‘Chocolates? Christmas cake?’
‘Hair,’ said Lisa.
That shut me up. ‘Hair?’ I pondered. ‘Whose?’
‘Mine.’
Yes, anyone can send a cake for Christmas. Not everyone couriers their own personal shag pile. Apparently, she has a big bag of her recently shaved hair hanging around. She’s been tweeting about it. No wonder she has 10 times the number of followers I have. We discussed the hair for a while. It will be strange to see it without Lisa underneath it, but more than that we have to decide what to do with it. We reckon that, since she has several months of non-working recovery still to come, we should use it to raise money towards Lisa’s medical costs.
Since I never really left behind my love affair with Keats, the Brontes and all those true Romantics, my first thought was to come up with a necklace and locket, inside which a lock of Lisa’s hair would be curled.
‘Brilliant idea,’ said Hanan as I gave myself a mental gold star. ‘Lisa’s fans could buy it for their girlfriends or boyfriends for Valentine’s Day.’
I don’t know about you, but if my wife confronted me on Valentine’s with a piece of jewelry containing the hair of a stunningly gorgeous actress, I might start crying. And not in a good way. But then I thought she had a point, because I have a ton of emails from people who thought I Can’t Think Straight and The World Unseen were the most romantic movies ever, so a lock of hair from Tala/Miriam’s head might be just the thing. And what else can you do with a mane of a goddess? Knit a scarf? Make high-end dental floss? Sell sticky facial tufts so you can recreate Robert Pattinson in Twilight in the comfort of your own home?
Lisa has a week of intense chemotherapy coming up, during which she will lose more hair (I asked her not to sweep that into a Fedex bag) followed by a couple of weeks in isolation while her immunity is at zero. Then it’s a few months at home for recovery. So let’s come up with some hairy ideas to warm her up in January. In the meantime, Lisa has sent a message to everyone, and asked us to post it. Here goes:

To all Fellow Yellow Diarists, Enlightened Friends and Supporters-

There has been such a constant outpouring of love and generosity since I began the Yellow Diaries. As I prepare for the final leg of my treatment for Multiple Myeloma, a lot of you have asked how you can continue to support this journey.
First know that I am grateful for all your open hearted responses already.
Second: please do not illegally download the films into which Shamim, Hanan, Sheetal and I have poured our creative energies. Purchase The World Unseen and I Can't Think Straight from the Enlightenment website and you will be supporting not just the films we created, but future film projects made with passion and integrity. Without this support, there will be no more. In addition, we the artists collectively cannot sustain ourselves financially if you are watching the fruit of our labour for free. Think about it- its difficult enough to remain true to your vision and passion. Working with Shamim and Hanan has been deeply inspiring and I would like to work with them again and again. I would like to continue to make my living as a actor committed to working on projects which illuminate and provoke. This can only happen if you express your support by buying the films.

Happy Holidays and a Yellow Wish for all-
Love,
Lisa
Picture: A snapshot from January 2008 in Switzerland, back when Shamim had cheekbones, Lisa had hair, and Hanan had the occasional holiday...

Christmas Spirit

2009-12-18T13:25:00.001-08:00

A tinge of snow in the air, the smell of decaying Christmas trees and the shrieks of children filled with chocolate Santas and hyperactivity - I knew it was time for my annual lunch with Kelly Moss. Since Kelly is my co-writer on I Can't Think Straight and one of the Executive Producers, and since I am the other writer and the director, we feel justified in referring to this 3 hour long homage to red meat and red wine as the 'office Christmas lunch'. Anyway, it's become an annual tradition, and one of the few things (along with runs in the park, grocery shopping, cooking and kids' homework) that Hanan generally steers clear of. Today, however, as she dropped me off outside a pub sporting fairy lights without and a fireplace within, she waved folornly.
'I'll just go home and have some salad,' she said.
I hesitated. It was zero degrees. A random snowflake grazed Hanan's head.
'Why don't you join us?' I offered. She considered. I knew she was drawn by the idea of warmth and hot food, but balked at the idea of sitting with two people who find themselves much more amusing than anyone else seems to.
'Would you like me to join you?' she asked.
Now that's a loaded question.
If you've ever been married to a woman - no, actually, if you've ever had a relationship with a woman, slept with a woman, or just spoken to one in a bar - you will know that there is only one correct answer to that question.
'Of course I do,' I said. And, in fact, I did. I love having my wife with me everywhere. But, where Kelly and I tend to sit about for hours admiring each others ability to make limericks out of the word 'dissolute', Hanan tends to order her main course and the bill at the same time and expect intelligent conversation in between. The 'office Christmas lunch' has certain standards, all of them quite low. Could two diverse cultures meet? Thinking of Tala and Leyla, even Amina and Miriam, I knew they could. So, I breezed into the dining room feeling goodwill to all women and we sat down with Kelly. I greeted her. Hanan greeted a passing waiter:
'We need to be out in an hour and a half,' she said. Hmm. It was downhill from there. We ordered the steaks and wine, but it wasn't the same with Hanan watching my glass ('You have to work') and picking stray bits out of my hair while silently miming to me to sit up straighter. Call me a grinch, but by the time she had admonished the waiter for taking three whole minutes to bring coffee, while Kelly and I galloped through a shared dessert trying not to chew so many times, I was filled with a warm Christmas feeling that was more like heartburn than compassion.
We hit the pavement towards the office leaving Kelly still draining the dregs of her wine, and as I hurried after Hanan tripping on my half-worn coat, she turned and watched me. I thought I felt it all. The irritation that she'd wasted all this time on two people who weren't funny enough to write a cracker joke, never mind a movie. The horror that she was married to someone daft enough to trip on her own coat. But her face broke into a smile.
'That was the most relaxing meal I've had in ages,' she said. I smiled too, relieved.
'In fact,' she said. 'I think I'll join you every year!'
Marriage. The agony and the ecstasy.

Let Her Eat Cake!

2009-12-14T14:33:00.000-08:00

Two women fall in love, against all odds. Gender, religion, race – none of these stars align. But there’s another factor throwing them into dis-alignment, a deeper mismatching that didn’t make it into the fictional world of ‘I Can’t Think Straight’. And it’s sandwiches. Yes, you read that right. While I can’t walk past a coffee shop without drooling at the idea of a cheese and pickle sandwich, Hanan views two slices of bread enclosing anything, especially when slathered with mayo or worse, mustard, as the lowest form of human expression. I was reminded of this when we found ourselves in a Pret between meetings with no option but a sandwich for sustenance. Excited, I skipped along the refrigerated sections, spoilt for choice. Horrified, Hanan desperately seized a felafel sandwich, a choice which could only go badly for someone raised on hot, homemade felafel in Jordan. We ate. I smiled. She whimpered.
‘There has to be a sandwich you LIKE,’ I said, not without a modicum of irritation.
‘Yes. I had a fabulous sandwich once,’ Hanan replied.
I brightened. ‘You see! Where?’
‘The Four Seasons George V in Paris. Remember that club sandwich?”
I cast my mind back, and recalled the fleetingly delicate taste of freshly seared free range chicken, encased in organic lettuce plucked but an hour beforehand, and wrapped in homemade bread finely sliced by some blonde and buxom sous chef, spread with butter salted from the dried tears of virginal maidens.
‘I remember it cost 42 euros,’ I said.
Hanan raised an eyebrow and I was saved only by a stranger who stepped up and asked if we were the makers of ‘I Can’t Think Straight’ and ‘The World Unseen’. Yes, added to my unique achievements of having written novels, raised two boys under eleven who can make a three course meal from scratch, danced on a Bollywood stage (albeit to the beat of a different drum), I can now say I was recognised in a coffee shop. I tried to be cool.
‘Yes, I’m the director of those movies,’ I said nonchalantly, wiping mayo off the side of my mouth. The woman peered at me, uncertain.
‘I wasn’t sure about you,’ she said. ‘But I recognised her,’ she continued, beaming at Hanan.
Of course you do, I thought. If I met someone who would only eat a 42 euro sandwich, I’d recognise her too.
And so on to the cooking show. ‘Middle Eastern Flavours’ got underway in earnest after a few false starts when our glamorous presenter had a small panic attack under the gaze of the camera, lights and mini-feature film sized crew that Hanan had assembled. A shot of brandy helped her no end (yes, it was 10 am but we told her it was definitely cocktail hour somewhere in the world) and we were on our way. It was frenetic, frightening and fun. All the adrenaline of being on a shoot coursed back into my veins as we tried to make breasts look more attractive (chicken breasts, obviously) and there was not a sandwich in sight nor, sadly, a buxom sous chef, though I asked Hanan to help chop more than once.
Hanan came down with a high temperature after the two day shoot and couldn’t get up by late afternoon Saturday. The stress of getting everything organised over the past several months, for this and a ton of other projects, kicked in, and she was subdued all weekend, emerging from the duvet at regular intervals only to ask me if I’d finished my blog (apparently she was ill, but not that ill). Still it was the quietest weekend I’d had in years, as I happily told Lisa Ray when we called her.
‘Is Hanan sick?’ she asked with uncanny precision. We discussed Argentinian book stores and racist dogs for a while, the kind of conversation that makes Hanan want to weep, before she wrested the phone from my hands and talked to Lisa about assets, business opportunities and time lines.
I ended up in the cinema with the boys, watching Planet 51, the point of which I am still not sure of, except to give exhausted parents time to sleep amongst wriggling toddlers and the stench of old sweets. I passed the (endless) time by watching my children fill their faces with stale popcorn. By the time we staggered home at 7pm in the pitch dark, they couldn’t face dinner.
‘What did you give them to eat?’ Hanan grilled me, as if I was a cheap cheese sandwich.
‘A little popcorn,’ I admitted, defensively.
‘It was HUGE,’ said the little one, who hasn’t learned the art of limiting information, holding out his arms to indicate the bucket of rubbish I had paid almost 42 euros to feed him with.
Hanan regarded me narrowly as their Omega 3-rich fish and rice and broccoli went untouched.
‘I’ll just go and write my blog,’ I said and disappeared as fast as I could.

Ciao, Italia!

2009-12-14T14:25:00.001-08:00

I left for Florence with a deep sense of unease. Lisa Ray’s dad called me, poring over the recipe I emailed for the Fatet Djaj (chicken, rice and houmus) that I had cooked for her. He couldn’t find the Middle Eastern spice mix we left for him.
‘Can I use garam masala instead?’
'NOOO!’ I screamed, but luckily, only in my head.
'Maybe’ I replied politely.
‘And I have a lot of limes,’ Mr Ray threw in. ‘I was going to use them instead of lemons’. My inner Nigella wept. This wasn’t Palestinian chicken any more, it was chicken vindaloo in a fajita. I am the kind of person who panics when I can’t time a boiled egg with a stopwatch, and no-one can make me breakfast because I am so anal about the toast being hot and the tea being drinking temperature all at the same time. So this news about limes and masala weighed heavily on me until Hanan asked me politely to get a grip. There was no time to waste because we were boarding a flight to Florence.
You know that T shirt – 'Italians Do It Better'? Ok, it is a bit 1980s, which is when half of you were born, but then the Vatican is more on top of popular culture than I am. Anyway, it’s true, about Italians. OK, perhaps they’re not better at organisation particularly, or timings, as Hanan found when we got to the fabulous old theatre and she cornered a random festival person by backing them against a coffee machine.
‘When is our movie playing?’ she asked.
‘Midnight. Or maybe 10.15?'
'Is that for sure?' Hanan asked through gritted teeth.
'Probably. We’re not sure.’
But you know, timing isn’t everything. I considered this as I inhaled my third plate of pasta while regarding Italian people skimming past the window, the men gorgeous and full of attitude, the women gorgeous and full of style. While I was just gorging and full of food.
My sister happened to be in Italy at the same time so came to the ‘I Can’t Think Straight’ screening with her boyfriend. I was afraid it would be him, her and 300 lesbians, but there were a high percentage of men, quite unusual during gay and lesbian festivals, and great to see. The response was ecstatic and the Q&A was in Italian! The long-lashed Fabrizio, organiser of the festival, made a fantastic translator, transforming even my most clumsy replies into a cascade of sexy Italian philosophy. And, as has lately become tradition, I met a FB fan, and she looked just like her photo, which is always reassuring. The lovely Sabrina drove from Rome to see both films, a trip of 300km which we so much appreciated.
Back home, Luca is fully recovered from swine flu just in time to play an Icicle in the school Christmas play. It’s funny how you can find a child in white tights, tinsel and a ton of make up cute, as long as it's your child, but that all too brief moment was not enough to sustain Hanan through another hour of three-year old dancing reindeers, so she started scribbling me a (new) To-Do List and coming up with new and brilliant ideas to fill my spare time over Christmas. On the other hand, I am determined to feel the spirit of Christmas (and I don’t mean lots of alcohol) so we took the boys to buy a tree this morning. The smell of the pines, the rustle of leaves, it was all fabulous. Not so fabulous is decorating the tree. It’s an annual, subtle battle between the parents (one colour baubles, delicate lights, tasteful) and the kids (As many clashing colours as possible and enough flashing lights to cause an epileptic fit). I’ll let you know who won next time. For now, I have to go and pick the tinsel out of my hair.
And one final thing – Hanan just spoke to Lisa to let her know that Enlightenment Productions raised $5000 for myeloma research from the percentage of sales from the end of September to November. You’ve all been amazing in ordering, re-ordering and spreading the word. Lisa is touched beyond words, and so are we. What can I say, except ‘grazie mille’ to the best fans in the world.

Merde!

2009-12-14T14:21:00.000-08:00

I know I am formally in production for a shoot, when my kind, caring wife leaves her body and a head-spinning demonic producer person takes over. This person does not care whether I am tired, hungry or overworked, she just wants everything ready and NOW. So I rushed to work, tried to answer 120 emails in 6 minutes and then found myself in the nearby café having an interview. Piece of cake, I told myself. A chat about The World Unseen and finding your path, about comedy and taboos in I Can’t Think Straight. I sipped my coffee and waited for the journalist to ask the question. 35 minutes later I was still waiting as he wanted to explain his theory on both films as the opening to my answer. It seemed like an excellent theory but he kept using words like pedagogical, oedipal and dialectic and you know, a cup of coffee will only get you through about 10 minutes of that. When he finished he looked at me expectantly. Hanan who had been fidgeting next to me for a while, looked at me expectantly. As casually as I could, I wiped the drool from my mouth and wondered if I dared ask what the question was again? Anyway, I got through it, realizing that Amina was indeed an oedipal rebuttal of the patriarchal symbol of dialectical learning and pedagogical craven backpedalling educative reductionism. Poor woman, no wonder she always had her hands in her pockets.
From there it was straight over to North London (Hanan packed her passport) to watch Mireille, our Middle East cooking show presenter, whip up a couple of recipes. This went well and gave Producer Hanan (as opposed to Wife Hanan) plenty to focus on other than me. As Mireille fried onions, Hanan emailed interns, made shopping lists, instructed her on camera technique, made calls and had me take photos and footage. On the way back, the Evening Standard called to ask for an article on Civil Partnerships.
“OK but I’m on a recce for a shoot. When do you need it?’
‘4pm’
I looked at my watch. It was 3.30pm. I looked at Hanan, watching for any signs of weakness.
‘No problem,’ I said.
After that, despite tending to a child with temperature on the one hand, and another child with homework meant for someone aged 17, Hanan hounded me for my cooking show script and shot list. Her Producer technique is just to keep asking ‘Do you have the script yet?’ and unless I put it in her hands, she ignores my increasingly hysterical answers and threats of divorce, and keeps repeating it. I can weep, shout and grumble, nothing moves Producer Hanan.
‘You don’t love me.’
‘Of course I do. Where’s the script.’
‘I’m going to leave you.’
‘Does that mean the script’s finished?’
So I finally sat down to write the script yesterday morning, sick child in bed, the other one whining about an essay on corporal punishment when Hanan told me we had to go to the park to shoot a video. In French. Listen, I love Paris as much as the next person, but I know enough to order steak frites and a nice Bordeaux and that’s it. Whereas Hanan, whether in Wife or Producer mode, can speak French as if she was born beneath the Eiffel Tower. Which I don’t rule out as a possibility until I’ve seen her original birth certificate. When we got back, we had to shoot another video for the new Enlightenment Productions website, launching in January. This one was in English, but by the time Hanan finished picking fluff off my hair, dusting my clothes and coaching me to be less wild but more funny, all I could say was ‘Merde.’ Funny that. A bientot.

Give Peace a Chance. Especially For Your Wife

2009-12-14T14:15:00.000-08:00

So I woke up in the morning to find myself face to face with an eyeball and it didn’t belong to Hanan. Don’t get ahead of yourselves, this is not a confession of anything dodgy. This slimy, bloodshot eyeball was not attached to a person, it was just stuck to the side of my bed staring at me like a producer willing me to finish a script…yes, the boys never fail to go to bed without thinking of beautiful things to leave for the mothers who have endured countless sleepless nights for them. I’ll stop now, before the violins kick in.
The day got better when Hanan announced that she wanted my script and shot list.
‘Script for what?’
‘Our new Middle Eastern cooking show. We’re shooting it in two weeks.’
When I finished crying, I asked her more details. She’s been planning this for a good while, to be fair, but since I was appealing to you all for help finding a presenter just a couple of weeks ago, I didn’t take it seriously. When will I learn? Nothing stops La Kattan, and sure enough, about ten seconds after I landed from Mumbai, she had set up a meeting with a very old friend who looks incredibly young, who loves food and cooks it, and who is half Lebanese, half Syrian and married to a Palestinian. If that woman can’t figure out what to do with a dead lamb and some rice, no-one can. As ever, my pared down bumbling idea that a couple of us might just show up with a DVCam and give it a shot were blasted out of the window and I found myself in a full scale production meeting about prime lenses, 3rd Assistant Directors and Production Designers. Ahh, it felt like prepping for The World Unseen. It even felt like prepping for I Can’t Think Straight (but without the harassment and weeping). So now I am behind a script, a shot list and a concept, but in the name of research I am retiring to bed (relatively) early and watching ‘Caramel’, a beautiful film set in Beirut. If you haven’t seen it, please do.
In other news, Hanan has been busy embarking on preparation for the TEDx conference that she decided to host with the lovely Israeli woman we met in India. The idea is to bring together Palestinians and Israelis, with a focus on women, who are doing interesting and remarkable things in a world where it is hard to focus on anything but survival. Hanan is from Jordan, but before that she is from Jerusalem and Bethlehem which feels very meaningful to someone born in Surrey. The event is almost a year away and it’s already been quite an effort in diplomacy which, I suspect, is the one subject Hanan must have flunked in school. So we’ve had protests that only Palestine should have a TEDx conference, we’ve had hassles about the name. Hanan's wonderful cousin Muna from Bethlehem even sent us Palestinian football kit for the boys. It had to be a place, and we didn’t want an Israeli name or a Palestinian one, but something inclusive. Some incredibly brilliant genius (I can’t say who, but she was struggling with shot lists for kebabs at the same time) came up with ‘Tedx HolyLand’. What do I think? Funny you should ask, because I was just about to tell you. I think that anything that humanizes two opposing camps to each other can’t be a bad thing. I think dialogue might expose pain, it might get nowhere, but it might, just might, get someone somewhere to think differently. And I think, like any good Brit sitting down over a nice cup of tea and a biscuit, even in the Holy Land, is definitely the way to go. 29th October 2010, East Jerusalem. Be there or be square...

Fishy Business

2009-12-14T14:13:00.000-08:00

And so, we are back in autumn in England, and the gilt-edged invitations are hitting the doormat. Before you get excited (or start laughing) at the idea of me hoisting on tights and a black dress, let me say that these are mostly invitations for our boys to interview at schools. I have no doubt that having tea with the Queen requires less formality. Applying to new schools has been such a test of endurance and nerves that I actually set up a whole spreadsheet to make sense of it, an act of insane efficiency that sent Hanan wild with excitement. And so, with interviews approaching for two boys whose preferred mode of communication appears to be silent telepathy, I sat down with Luca over breakfast to slyly conduct a test interview. As he spat toast crumbs everywhere I started with an easy one.
‘What’s your favourite subject?’
He chewed impassively. ‘I dunno’
‘OK. If you had to choose a subject, which one would you pick?’ I responded, pleased with my savvy interviewing skills.
‘What’s a subject?’
I went off to get my own toast.
Back at the office, we are newly installed on the fourth floor (no lift) which means that after staggering up the stairs every morning, I can wait for my ears to pop and entertain myself by watching a series of student interns half my age panting their way in. By the time Hanan arrives, she has had plenty of thinking time on the stairs to come up with a whole new marketing strategy daily and a new To Do list for me. It’s only a matter of time before she installs an oxygen tank to deal with the altitude, and enlists a Sherpa to carry her Macbook.
And so to the Finnish Embassy for a film party this evening. When we first got the invitation we weren’t sure if it we were being set up for a practical joke. I mean, Finnish films aren’t that well known (hence the party I guess) and you name a famous Finn movie (except Finding Nemo). But we rocked up to Kensington Palace Gardens, which is very lovely and high security, and there was indeed an embassy and a party. The other invitees were companies like Disney and Xbox. Yes, it was them, and us, the makers of blockbusters I Can’t Think Straight and The World Unseen. We got some brilliant advice on online marketing, so good in fact that Hanan dragged me away from the array of pickled and smoked fish and bundled me into the car so we could get home and make notes. Or blogs. But I’m going to see if I can get a tea break now. Chomping herring is thirsty work and I need to excuse myself from the vicinity before my wife realises I've been making up keywords with the word Finn in them...

Bombay Dreams

2009-12-13T13:49:00.000-08:00

I think it was when I jumped on stage to dance to Bollywood numbers with the 100 other people led by the Slumdog Millionaire choreographer, that I realised I was infected with India. Nothing could stop me, not even Hanan's aghast look as I moved my arms the opposite way to everyone else. No, for a brief, glittering moment, lit by spotlights, some colonial palace behind me, I was Aishwarya Rai -at least on the inside. I thought that, after that, the final hours of TED could do nothing more to complete my Indian odyssey, but more was to come when we had breakfast with Eve Ensler (the genius behind The Vagina Monologues and V-Day) and lunch next to His Holiness the Karmapa. Yes, it was a blast, AND we got to eat daal every meal, which combines deliciousness with colonic irrigation.
And so on to Mumbai, for a big meeting, and I stayed with Aseem, my brilliant cinematographer from I Can't Think Straight, and the man who worked so hard on The World Unseen in post production. He and his wife Leena are the most enlightened, kind and funny people I ever met. They sort of drift around telling the best stories which alternate between profound Indian mythology and deeply hilarious behind the scenes snapshots of Indian film sets, and in between they do the work of ten people. I hated to leave them, but I needed to go home to Hanan and the boys, and besides I'd had enough of musing about why everyone, even women in saris keep spitting on the pavements, or why car horns are used as a communication tool every two seconds. And I am sorry I didn't get to meet the Mumbai fans. I had forgotten how it is to make plans in a city where a) people call to set up a meeting as they are on their way to see you b) the traffic makes Piccadilly Circus feel like a bike trail. Plus my first encounter with Indian Chinese food did me in more than any wine-fuelled dancing could have. And so, I came away from India having met one fan at least, Kusuma in Bangalore who greeted us with beautiful flowers and breathlessness. I'm sure that happens to Aishwarya a lot.
And so back to London where I looked forward to peace, quiet and a gentle welcome home for the weary traveler. Of course, during this reverie in the car home, I had temporarily forgotten whom I was married to. And so, I dropped my bags at home and rushed to Luca’s class assembly, where he had a lead role, and then after helping him and 15 other hyper seven year olds change back into uniform, I collapsed into the car and begged to go home to a hot shower and sleep.
‘You’re not coming to the office?’ Hanan asked.
‘I’ve been on a plane all night, haven’t slept in days and I don’t feel well,’ I whined, as we pulled up outside the supermarket. Hanan thrust a list into my hand.
‘Here. We have 10 people for dinner tonight.’
I knew that, of course, and it was for such a dear friend that shopping and making a home made birthday cake was a pleasure (I skipped the office!) As I staggered into bed at midnight, I looked forward to an easier day to come.
‘We’re moving offices tomorrow,’ Hanan reminded me. ‘4th floor. No lift.’ Why did she have to say it out loud? I mustered just enough strength to start weeping.
And so, I am behind on the blogs. But, you’ll be happy to know that Hanan has been nagging me non-stop since I landed to post one. And I feel she's recruited spies onto her side. I just fell asleep with the boys while allegedly putting THEM to bed, and I woke up to find them staring at me...here's the blog. I'm off to sleep. I hope.

Insanity in Incredible India

2009-12-10T04:56:00.001-08:00

We hadn't heard from Lisa Ray for a few days, and when she didn't respond to Hanan's insistent messages, it was time for me to send a one line email from India. 'Are you on the roof?'
'No,' came the response. 'I guess I'm in the basement, since everything's upside down here.'
'Where?'
'South America.'
As you can tell, Lisa and I often email as if we're telegraphing each other in 1929 and every word costs a fortune which irritates Hanan as it leaves her without the detail she likes. What she had gleaned is that Lisa had decided to fly down to Buenos Aires when Dr Kattan had instructed her not to, and that meant that Hanan was now on the roof, and not in a good way. To calm her down I bundled her onto a TED bus to visit a Tibetan Buddhist monastery outside Mysore. What could be more calming than a long drive towards 700 chanting men in robes, right? Well, the first person we met on the bus was a charming woman. She asked where Hanan was from.
'I'm Palestinian,' Hanan replied.
'Really?' she responded, excited. 'I'm Israeli!'
I considered throwing us both out of the window before another Middle East conflagration engulfed us all, but our new friend was charming and open-minded, and she and Hanan spent the three hour round trip banging out a new peace process. We took a well-earned break to see men in saffron dresses, and we took photos with the monks and then got our karmic payback when an enormous family of Indians crowded around us to take a photo with me and Hanan. We were in quite a rural area and I somehow doubted they were 'I Can't Think Straight' fans. Actually, I think they just wanted to take a picture with the weird-looking Indian girl.
Back at TED, Hanan was noticing that we were sharing a campus (Infosys) with 10,000 young Indians, 5000 of them good-looking young Indian women, who all looked better in a shalwaar kameez than me. She also revelled in the lunches and dinners, all with plenty of Indian food (although, I suppose in India, it's just 'food') and asked me why, when I loved cooking, I couldn't cook much Indian food. I was sensing a theme here, a delicate comparison for her Indian-heritaged wife to the true Indian women here, and I wasn't coming out well...Luckily, we were taken off the Infosys campus for dinner, which made everyone happy, as the campus is very beautiful but very dry, and I don't mean it lacks rainfall. A long-awaited glass of wine in the lush garden of a beautifully lit palace hotel, while the South Indian rain poured down was a stunning sight. And the people we met were quite something. From the man who invented a needle that self-destructs after one use (saving 300,000 Indian kids from death by infection every year), to His Holiness the 17th Karmapa (a young 2nd in command to the Dalai Lama, who Hanan marched up to and shook hands to his glee and to the consternation of his Tibetan entourage), to an indomitable Indian grandmother in a sari who belts out Gershwin standards like Ethel Merman - it's an extraordinary mix of people who are all passionate about what they do. As everyone was roused to clap along and dance I realised that, apart from lacking the ability to wear a sari, and cook a good daal, I was also possibly the only person of Indian descent who has no sense of rhythm whatsoever. By contrast, I was married to the only Arab woman who could do a decent impression of Aishwarya Rai tossing her hair and dancing around to Bollywood beats. Seriously. I am jet-lagged, surrounded by non-Indians dancing to Bollywood choreography, meeting monks, Swamis, and tech geniuses, listening to the most intense lectures, eating four plates of daal a day on an alcohol-free campus and Lisa is in the basement in South America. If this is how it feels to be sober, will someone please send me a bottle of Bordeaux?!

I Forgot What I Remembered To Tell You!

2009-12-10T04:54:00.000-08:00

So it is goodbye to Portugal, where Hanan’s favourite aunt has looked after us so well, it was like having BA special services with us after all. The intriguing thing about my Palestinian wife is that she seems to have cousins, aunts and uncles in every corner of the world, but one of the best things about her aunt is that she talks to me only in Arabic, even when we’re alone, even though she speaks perfect English, and even though my Arabic is limited to two handy phrases - ‘Can I gave a felafal with extra garlic please?’ and ‘I don’t belong in Guantanamo, but do you have a blue jumpsuit anyway?’ Anyway, thanks to her amazing generosity, our time here has been a wonderful mixture of great food, massages and traditional fado (Portuguese songs of yearning), but not all at the same time.
On the final day, after a morning’s work, we shepherded the boys into the car for a last run around the beach. Hanan had not fully disengaged from work mode so she was driving the way she works – furiously and without noticing that she didn’t own the road. Unsurprisingly, we overshot the turn off to the beach as we thundered down the tarmac road like Thelma and Louise. I hung onto the hand strap and screamed as Hanan wrenched the car into a turn. The boys blanched and nearly threw up as the stench of burned rubber poured through the open windows. Hanan, wearing shades and an oblivious attitude, cranked Leonie Casanova’s ‘I Wanted New York’ louder on the CD to drown out my weeping. It was like a scene from the Bourne Identity. Nauseating, scary but super cool.
On the other hand, all my attempts at coolness come to nothing, and I suspect that is because coolness cannot be bought, learned or faked. Like a sense of rhythm (something that also escapes me), you’ve either got it or you ain’t. But I realized I had crossed the bounds of nerdyness into something more worrying when I got out of the shower, where I had been attempting to wash the smell of scorched tyres out of my hair. I dried off, picked up a bottle of something that looked familiar, and slathered it over myself. Only when I was fully coated in a layer of soapy slime did I realize I had attempted to moisturize with shower gel. I got back in the shower, and recalled another incident the day before that had also made me fear for my sanity. I thought of the movie ‘Iris’ and felt hard done by for I hadn’t imagined losing my marbles until I was at the Judi Dench stage, and here I was, barely past Kate Winslet. I called to Hanan in such a tormented whine that she immediately abandoned her Macbook and strode to the bathroom.
I told her what I had done with the shower gel. She bit into an apple and said nothing, which was just as well, because I wasn’t finished. Eyes misting over as I slipped into a satisfying, treacle pool of self-pity, I begged her to put me in a home at the first sign of dementia, to just lock the door, toss the key into her cleavage and get on with her life without so much as a backward glance. I wouldn’t want to hold her back from finding happiness with someone else, I continued, and she should always remember me as I once was, a witty, brilliant writer, unable to dance but willing to try…Practically sobbing, I watched as she continued chewing her apple impassively.
‘Who directed ‘I Can’t Think Straight’?’ she asked.
Clearly she was testing my memory and sanity. I bridled at the attempt. ‘Martin Scorsese,’ I sniffed, irritated.
‘Who wrote ‘The World Unseen’?’
‘Jackie Collins.’
‘Who buys your bras?’ she grinned. Well, there was no way I was going to lie about that one.
‘Lisa Ray,’ I admitted.
‘I have news,’ Hanan grinned. ‘You’re not senile. You’ve been like this since we met.’
Hmm. I watched her leave the bathroom as I replaced self-pity with self-doubt. What did this mean? Would she lock me up? Would she throw away the key and cavort around the world picking up lesbians at festivals…? Clearly not, because she just reminded me that we have around 30 hours in London before we turn around to attend the TED conference in India. Then she told me the 30 hours included a lunch with friends for Luca’s birthday, trick or treating with the kids, going to the office, cooking dinner for her dad, unpacking and repacking. So why India? Well that was Hanan’s 40th birthday present to me, and how it came about is a story in itself, but I’ll keep that for the next blog. If I can remember to write it.

Special Services & A Happy Ending

2009-12-10T04:52:00.002-08:00

So, after a whistle stop North American tour during which I nearly succeeded in having Sheetal and Hanan arrested in Tampa, Hanan nearly got us both arrested sending DVDs to the White House, and I went underwear shopping with Lisa Ray in Toronto, we landed back in London for 24 hours before seeing what mayhem we could wreak on Portugal. But wait, I hear you cry. We heard about the Florida cop and the DC cab driver, but what’s with Lisa Ray and the underwear? I know. After Toronto I gave you a heartfelt and meaningful encapsulation of the emotional landscape of our visit with Lisa, when what we all really wanted was to talk about bras and panties. OK, stop pleading, I’ll tell you how it happened.
We were wandering up the road with Lisa to have lunch when she spied an Apple store.
‘I want to get you something for your birthday, Shamimi,’ she said, pulling me inside. I declined politely, I chained myself to trees in protest, but she was adamant.
‘My present is being here with you,’ I said. She regarded me with all the baleful suspicion that this reply deserved and continued to drag me around pointing out things I might like. As a Libran, I cannot commit to buying a newspaper without thinking about it for an hour or so, so I was quite distressed.
‘I don’t want to buy things I don’t need,’ I insisted.
‘OK, then what do you need?’
The only thing I had come to North America determined to buy was underwear. It’s easier, somehow, and cheaper, frankly. A gleam hit my eye.
‘I need bras,’ I said.
Hanan saw through my evil plan as if my mind was cellophane. ‘You just want to be able to blog that Lisa Ray bought you underwear.’
Maybe I did. Is that such a bad thing? Wouldn’t you brag about that? Exactly.
Cut to the next day. Lisa and Shamim occupy adjoining changing rooms while outside Hanan runs with a trolley through the aisles and sweeps large black T shirts into it by the armful. Now that I was faced with myself wearing nothing but a (very lovely) new bra and my old jeans, in a huge mirror with frighteningly bright lighting, my bravado was seeping away. Next door, Lisa tried on tops then whipped open my curtain.
‘How’re the bras?’
I sucked my stomach in and hastily put on my clothes. ‘Perfect. I feel very uplifted.’
And so I did, and the uplifted feeling from my excellent birthday presents lasted all the way to the British Airways counter en route to Portugal. We checked in without incident (if you don’t count the kids trying to check themselves in as luggage on the baggage belt) and as we turned away to leave the counter a young woman stepped up smartly and flashed her badge.
‘Ms Kattan? Ms Sarif? Special Services. Step this way please.’
SPECIAL SERVICES?? STEP THIS WAY?? I’ve seen Hollywood spy movies, I’m a director for goodness sake! This was it. This was code. They’d discovered that I didn’t know Hanan’s favourite colour, that our life together was a sham, and we were being deported. That we had actually lived together for 13 years and were British citizens on British soil temporarily slipped my mind. All I knew was that we were headed to Guantanamo, and that orange jumpsuits didn’t suit me, no matter how sexy my bra.
Elaine had by now introduced herself with great charm (my first inkling she might not be with the CIA) and we followed her to security where with several crisp flashes of her badge, we sailed through. Of course, my Britishness meant I would rather be shipped to a hellhole than actually ask what was happening, but luckily I was travelling with Hanan, Interrogator Extraordinaire. She asked a few questions and Elaine told us her job was to help people who travel often with British Airways and also celebrities (with a nod to me) through the airport. Obviously I immediately thought that she had mistaken me for Angelina Jolie (stop laughing, I’ll do the jokes) but it turned out she knew The World Unseen and I Can’t Think Straight, and was there to make sure the director and producer were looked after. Now I could relax about it, I took a moment to feel like a rock star and enjoy the attention. The boys eyed our escort uncertainly.
‘Is she coming with us to Portugal?’ the younger one asked.
Frankly, as we were led to the business class lounge, I thought that would not be a bad idea. Sadly Elaine had a lot more work to do and had to leave us there. But I want to thank her for making our day, and also allowing me to leave you with this gem of wisdom. You never know when you’re going to be in a first class lounge, or strip-searched in a prison, but either way, it pays to have good underwear.

Lisa Ray

2009-12-10T04:52:00.001-08:00

11pm Sunday night, off a plane from DC and we’re being driven through the quiet, genteel streets of Toronto to see Lisa. Haven’t seen her since her diagnosis. We’ve seen her interviews, seen the pictures on her blog, but Hanan is still worried I will crack. ‘Don’t stare at her, if she doesn’t look the same,’ she tells me and I smile.

I don’t know how to do anything else. I have spent most of two whole years staring at Lisa. Checking the light against her cheekbones through the viewfinder of a Panavision movie camera. Watching her in rehearsal, getting used to evaluating her on set, learning her mannerisms, noting the way her eyes reflect a genuine emotion found and rendered to make Miriam real in The World Unseen. Understanding which moments are fall backs because she’s tired, or because she temporarily has lost my view of the ephemeral essence of the scene after 12 hours of shooting and the 6th take. Gazing at the features she shares with Tala on a fifteen foot high studio screen, checking colours with clean, clinical concentration. Learning how to communicate with her to refine a performance, explaining without too many words – because, for someone who writes so well, she doesn’t like too many words. The poet in her realised a while ago that words are a poor substitute for what we all yearn and love and desire, but that our humanity always makes us try and shuffle those words into patterns that evoke meaning. And feeling.

So we hug her and kiss her, and lie on the bed and touch hands, arms, whatever, all of us. It’s a visceral need, to feel she is there and solid and with us when we were scared out of our wits by the word ‘cancer’, because there’s a word that can evoke meaning for you, all of it layered with fear and sorrow. And I look at her, closely, for these two days, see the way the steroids have rounded her face, made her blowfish cheeks burn hot like she’s holding coals in her mouth. And her eyes, liquid green and glowing. I watch her laugh and speak, dropping philosophy that stills us from her chapped lips with no effort, and I watch Hanan, my practical, beautiful doer and fixer, who cries silently as she holds Lisa because she can’t fix her. Hanan, who always conceals the flayed, raw emotions of her heart under lists and bluster, but the cover is blown now, and that is hard to watch.

It’s a lot to observe, a lot to absorb, and we spend every minute together, explaining, comparing, deciding but mostly laughing very hard. I cook, desperate to nourish her, marinating chicken, steaming rice, toasting pine nuts, crisping garlic, so much garlic, because garlic cleans the blood, doesn’t it, it’s better than a stem cell transfusion, better than chemo, better than anything else I can do.

So. How was it with Lisa? I can’t tell you more than I’ve told you here – and it was a lot more fun than this blog. It was being with family, and the best kind of family. And I am sorry I did not make you laugh today, my lovely fans. I am sorry I did not make you drop your phone, or snort coffee through your nose, or wake your sleeping girlfriend with your giggles, or make you not care that your bike got stolen. You see, I remember the things you tell me, and I am glad for them. We’ll laugh again in a couple of days, but in the meantime when you ask me how Lisa was, I can tell you that she was rightly once voted on of the most beautiful women of the millennium, and that it had very little to do with how she looks.

Hanan for the White House!

2009-10-19T18:36:00.000-07:00

Picture it. Saturday, late afternoon, Washington DC. Having spent a frustrating ten minutes suggesting to Hanan that you probably couldn’t just courier a box set of I Can’t Think Straight and The World Unseen to President Obama, I found myself in the back of a cab with Hanan, and an A4 envelope containing our movies. The driver asked us where we’d like to go.
‘The White House,’ Hanan informed him. ‘Just to the entrance. We need to drop off a package.’
The cab driver regarded her in the mirror as if she had two heads. ‘Lady, you can’t just drive on up to the White House and say hey, here’s a package.’
‘No?’ asked Hanan, taken aback.
‘They got security and shit! I mean, what if that parcel’s full of anthrax?’
She waved the box set at him. ‘It’s just DVDs. The envelope’s open…’
He whipped around in his seat. ‘And you know what else?’ he cried. ‘You look MIDDLE EASTERN!’
We got out of the cab and into bed, where we opened an email from Aida with the link to our live Tampa radio interview from earlier that day. Well, the interview was only 10 minutes long, but we were both fast asleep by the time it was done. I like to think it was because we were exhausted, not because we were boring. Anyway, here’s the link, in case you feel like listening, just type in the date in the Archive box, and we start about 6 minutes in.http://www.wmnf.org/programs/303
But I digress. Back to this morning, and we headed to the Corcoran Gallery to see a show by photographer Ed Burtynsky, whom we met through our dear friend and Exec Producer on The World Unseen, Katherine Priestley. It was phenomenal, but somewhat less phenomenal was traipsing around the park afterwards in a freezing gale to get a view of The White House. I watched Hanan nervously, half expecting her to whip a box set out of her bag and hurl it at the balcony, but we were much too far away, so she contented herself with stopping random tourists (always ones who spoke absolutely no English) to have them take endless pictures of us. And I contented myself with whining about the cold, until we found a cab.
As we drove past the sights, Hanan looked mistily out of the window.
‘That’s where my office used to be,’ she told me. ‘Overlooking that big white thing.’
‘You mean the Washington Monument? And what do you mean “office”?’
‘I had an office here. For a year and a half. Years ago’
Of course she did. I am married to Hanan, International Woman of Mystery. From Osaka to Shanghai, from Hong Kong to DC, from Paris, France to Waco, Texas -there’s nowhere she hasn’t spent time. I suppose it’s a good thing that after nearly 14 years with her, I’m still finding out new things, but it does make me fear that if, during my ongoing application for Canadian citizenship, they decide to interview us to see if we’re a genuine couple, we would both flunk unceremoniously. I told her this, and she assured me immigration would only ask about our favourite colours.
'What's your favourite colour?' I asked, realising I wasn't sure.
'Red,' Hanan replied without missing a beat.
'RED?' I was astounded. 'You don't wear red clothes, you threw out my only red shirt, there's nothing red in our house and you only wear black. What do you like about red?'
'I like the idea of it,' she said as if that ought to be obvious. I sat back and looked out of the window, pretending I was already being deported.
Luckily we were whisked away to the pre-screening brunch where more Facebook Super Fans (hello Jinnie, Madison, Lauren and more) were waiting. It’s like a secret society now, everywhere we go, women pop up and know everything about us. Jinnie and Lauren took charge of the camera while Hanan and I met her friends, Rania (ex Chief of Staff for the King & Queen of Jordan) and Marwan (ex-Foreign Minister of Jordan and Ex Ambassador to Washington). I was becoming more and more nervous as to the Arab response to the political aspects of the film, but since they’d grown up with Hanan, they only wanted to discuss each detail of her five exes. This entailed talking through the entire film, so I was relieved when it was time for the Q&A and signing. From there it was straight to the airport, and you can guess that the reason for my second blog in two days is that I was trapped inside a sealed metal tube, in mid-air, sitting next to Hanan. I love that woman, but I love it more when we spend two hours laughing so hard we can’t move, and less when she’s cracking the whip. But hey, I’m not cold, so I can’t complain. Sleep is for wimps. Blogs are for champions.

Fun in Florida

2009-10-18T08:30:00.000-07:00

I leapt out of bed our first morning in Tampa, and threw back the curtains to let the Florida sunshine pour in. It was pitch dark outside. I checked the clock. 4.30 am.
‘What time is it?’ my wife mumbled.
‘9.30,’ I answered. I didn’t add ‘In London’, but I crawled back to bed and fell asleep, leaving her to lie awake until the sounds of tropical rainstorm outside roused me again. ‘It’ll clear,’ I assured Hanan. ‘This is the sunshine state’.
Well, we spent most of the day looking like entrants in a wet T-shirt contest but, luckily, the Tampa Theatre, one of the last remaining movie palaces in America, had it’s own starry skied ceiling and truly stunning architecture. As we walked through the theatre to the green room, a woman began shrieking and tearing across the auditorium towards us. I looked behind me, expecting that Angelina Jolie was shadowing me, but no, the woman was heading for me and I knew it had to be a Facebook Super Fan, but all I had to go on are the little photos of all of you. She reached us at last.
‘Sallie from Chicago,’ she panted. ‘You’re all so much shorter than I imagined.’
Lovely to meet you too, I smiled, suddenly feeling like a Hobbit. Maybe I just have the stature of a giant in our You Tube videos, maybe I just looked smaller amongst the vast size of all things North American. Anyway, it was really wonderful to meet Sallie, as I do feel I almost know you all from your comments and photos. In the green room we all felt even tinier when we were introduced to Kathy De Buono (‘Out at the Wedding’) who is seven feet tall if she’s an inch. I was beginning to get a complex, but there was no time to brood, because I Can’t Think Straight started and I didn’t want to miss any of the story, because you know how hard it can be to catch up.
By the time we made it outside to the book signing, Hanan and Sheetal had fallen into their familiar pattern of bickering, a tradition which began on set. I signed a book and passed it on to Sheetal, whose leg generally taps up and down with compressed nervous energy.
‘Here, sign this,’ Sheetal said to Hanan.
‘How about saying ‘please’?’ Hanan growled, thumping Sheetal’s knee to make her leg stop jiggling
‘You wanna sign it or not, HK?’ she asked, tapping the other foot.
‘My name is Hanan.’
‘Sure, HK.’
After an hour, I’d had enough and looked for help. Luckily, as I turned around, I found a policewoman standing right behind me.
‘Can you sign this please?’ she asked, waving The World Unseen at me.
‘Yes, I can but then I need you to handcuff these two together,’ I said, cocking an eyebrow at Hanan and Sheetal.
‘I’ll chew off my own arm,’ said Hanan.
Ah, the delicate relationship between producer and actor. Always a joy to watch. Luckily, the evening ended with more wine, courtesy of our hospitable festival progammer, Jill.
We’re en route to DC now, having gone to the airport via the local public radio station for a live interview on the Woman’s Show. My last radio experiences were at the BBC in London, which was all steel barriers, metal detectors, security badges and cubicle studios. Here it was like being in someone’s living room – quilts on the walls, ornaments, a dog roaming around and hot coffee brewing. Even in the rain, I could get used to this. But Washington DC beckons followed by some time with Lisa Ray in Toronto, and so we have to leave the (alleged) sunshine of Florida for the cold cut and thrust of the seat of political power. Not that it bothers Hanan. ‘I’m thinking to send Michelle a copy of the movies, and invite her to the screening tomorrow,’ she just told me.
Michelle, Michelle, I pondered. Not a fan, I think. Is she a festival person? I rarely forget a name so I turned to her in chagrin. ‘Who’s Michelle?’
She regarded me with pity, as though I may have early Alzheimers. ‘Michelle Obama.’ She left out the ‘Duh’ on the end, but it was in her tone.
Right, then. I really hope she doesn’t come, or I’m going to feel even shorter.

The Lion Roars

2009-10-15T18:24:00.001-07:00

Two nights ago, we had Hanan’s father over for dinner for his birthday. He is a lovely man with a deliciously dry sense of humour, and when you meet him, you can tell where Hanan and Ethan get their inability to sit still, and their need to do twelve things at once. It was a unique chance for me to observe the Kattan genes over three generations and frankly, once I accepted the mania and drama, it was entertaining to watch. In lieu of conversation, Hanan flipped open her Mac and her electric foot massager (I kid you not), and started Skyping Aida while relaying instructions to her sister from her father, and all the while Ethan was doing homework on his computer. But wait, I hear you ask. Who was making dinner, icing a homemade birthday cake, getting Luca ready for bed, helping Ethan with homework and pouring drinks? Why, that would be me! I whirled around like frenzied butler waving chocolate icing-encrusted spoons at a chocolate-encrusted Luca who was refusing to brush his teeth. Ethan looked up from his science homework:
‘I need two rules for working safely with electricity,’ he said.
I looked with mute desperation at Hanan. She didn’t glance up from the computer but she felt the look and shrugged.
‘Hire an electrician,’ I told Ethan. ‘And don’t put your toaster in the bath.’
He started writing, freeing me to finish icing Luca and put the cake to bed. Anyway, a good time was had by all, especially when I got my hands on a bottle of wine, and yesterday was Aida’s birthday, and we’re only sorry we couldn’t entice her to join us in Tampa so I could throw her into a crowd of cheering lesbians as her present…
Speaking of birthdays, when the boys first asked me what I'd like for mine, I told them anything they picked would be perfect, because I was sure they would consider the kinds of things Mummy liked.
'A remote-controlled car!' one shouted.
'SPIDERS!!' yelled the other.
Needless to say, I didn't hold out much hope. Luckily for me, the birthday fairy, otherwise known as The Diva Kattan stepped in and drove our under-age offspring to a liquor store where they picked out a breathtakingly expensive bottle of Bordeaux. It cost so much that I am still in the phase of just looking at the label while changing my mind daily over whether beef or lamb would work better with it (yes, I can really be scary to live with).
Now I ended up with much more than I deserved in phenomenal presents from my beautiful wife, and such thoughtful gifts from the friends that we had over for dinner that I can honestly say there was not one thing that I haven't used already, including the inflatable woman (that's a joke, my friends are far too tasteful for that). But prize for most unique gift went to Leonie Casanova (http://tinyurl.com/yjpnu7v). She arrived 'from a music lesson' (liar) carrying her guitar case like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music (but minus the bad pinafore dress and page boy haircut obviously) and then stood up after we'd finished dinner and announced that her present was a new song that she would sing for us that evening.
Well, it was stunning, and captured all the emotion, intelligence and melodic brilliance that first made Hanan and I jump on Leonie the first evening we encountered her genius in a smoky jazz bar. But then it was over. A fleeting moment of heaven, and now I wanted to hear it again. Luckily, our own personal CNN correspondent, Hanan Amanpour, had thought ahead and had lunged for the video camera as soon as Leonie started strumming. By the time she was done, we had it all on tape.
'We'll make a video for the fans!' Hanan announced.
'It has to be about Shamim's birthday, not the song,' Leonie said.
'No way, it's about the song, not my birthday,' I answered.
Hanan just shrugged and, like the mini United Nations that she is, managed to meld both our wishes together into one video. So, fans, super fans and mega fans, ladies, gentlemen and inflatable fans, I give you Leonie Casanova, singing 'I Wanted New York'. Enjoy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7stXfZtcxI

No Nipples

2009-10-12T04:37:00.001-07:00

A beautiful Sunday morning in the park with the boys, and my mind drifted to nipples. No, I do not make Polanski look like a Sunday school teacher. We were teaching Luca to ride his bike on his own, and as Hanan and I jogged alongside him like a couple of extras from 'Run, Fatboy, Run', we went past the spot where we shot the final scene of I Can't Think Straight with Tala and Leyla on the bench. We'd had a very rough day before, shooting the first love scene. It had started, as so many days did during that shoot, late and stressed out thanks to the first (so-called) financier. With all the charm of an irritated Nazi, he called me in, waved Lisa Ray's contract at me and growled.
'This has a 'no nipple' clause,' he grunted.
This wasn't news to anyone. I like a nipple as much as the next woman, but I didn't need them in this movie. I kept quiet and waited.
'I want nipples. Go find Lisa and make her show them, or the shoot is off.'
I exited and found Hanan who was busy scaring Indian lighting crew into working faster. She saw the look on my face.
'What is it?' she asked.
'He wants nipples.'
She considered a moment. 'Do you want nipples?'
'Not really.'
Hanan rolled up her metaphorical sleeves and went to take on the So-Called, Unethical Movie guy (maybe I should shorten that to, SCUM, gosh that's an unfortunate acronym) while I went to see Lisa. She was waiting to start shooting, drinking herbal tea.
'What's the delay?' she asked.
'I've been told to convince you to give me nipples.'
Lisa sipped meditatively at her camomile. 'You want nipples, Shamim?'
I looked at her. 'It's terribly good of you to ask, but no. I don't want them'
We sat there for a while, passing the time, and chatting till Hanan came down stairs.
'He wants Sheetal's nipples too.'
One thing I am is an equal opportunity employer. If I don't want Lisa's nipples, I don't want Sheetal's. All for one, and one for all. Suffice to say that Hanan's unique combination of persuasion and firepower enabled the shoot to continue and we enforced the closed set rule, meaning that only 7 crew were allowed in, and all of them women (except for Aseem, the DP, who despite having a face covered in hair and a propensity for calling Lisa 'Dude', is an honorary girl). Anyway, that's where my mind was as we let go of Luca and he flew down the road, riding on his own. don't know where Hanan's mind was, but she was out of breath and had to sit down. I hope it was just from the bike ride...

Drama, Drama, Drama!

2009-10-05T16:08:00.001-07:00

Hanan has a vice. Worse than a vice, actually, an addiction. High time I put it out there to you fans who think she's so pure. What is it, you cry? Drugs? No, she's high enough. Alcohol? She never touches it. Sex? She never touches it (ha ha, just a bitter joke from a writer made to write a blog at midnight instead of..never mind). No, her vice is DRAMA. The craziness, the wildness, the extreme emotions of life. The more the better, and if it doesn't show up, Hanan will find it. She's famous for it. So much so that on set, Lisa Ray's favourite thing to do was stalk my wife declaiming 'Drama, drama, drama!' in an Arabic accent.
Bear with me, there is a point to this. Anyone who has the I Can't Think Straight soundtrack will know Natacha Atlas because we used two of her Arabic fusion songs in the movie - Ghanwa Bossanova and Kidda. So today, I took Hanan to see Natacha in concert. First up, the concert was in Islington (north London, we live south). Once we made it through passport control and immigration (just past Piccadilly Circus), Hanan was much happier and we parked right outside the venue, an amazing church, and cruised in to seats wherever we liked, and we liked the 3rd row, a mere spitting distance from Natacha Atlas.
Frankly, I knew nothing about Natacha and had no idea what to expect, except that voice, but when she walked out Hanan just about passed out with joy. In a word, the woman is a Diva, with a capital D. We're talking leopard-print dress slashed up to the waist, cleavage that makes Dolly Parton look like Shane in 'The L Word', and enough eyeliner to make Cleopatra wish she was bolder. She walked out, sat down on a red-cloth draped chair and broke everyone's heart with her voice. It was drama, romance, and more drama. Hanan was doubled over in a paroxysm of drama overdose. By the time La Atlas got up, right at the end, and belly-danced (I kid you not) Hanan had to be revived by paramedics.
My wife recovered enough to suggest that we go and 'say hello' to Natacha after the show.
'I wish we'd brought the movies for her to see that we used her songs,' I said.
'I already couriered them to her this afternoon,' Hanan said.
Of course she did. What was I thinking. So I mutely followed as Hanan marched up to the woman guarding the backstage area and asked if we could go in and thank Natacha. I don't know what it is about my wife that inspires either trust or immense fear, but the woman opened the door for us without missing a beat, and we were in, thrust into the (non-sagging) bosom of Natacha Atlas. She seemed so much more fragile and delicate in person. We chatted, she was lovely and had received the movies. And obviously, she wanted a picture with me and Hanan, so we kindly obliged...

Two Writers Are Better Than One

2009-10-05T16:05:00.001-07:00

There's only one thing that makes Hanan happier than nagging me to write, and that's when she can nag two people at once. So it was that Lisa Ray, fresh from retreat in Vermont, found Hanan on the phone asking for 1. her next blog and 2. her new book. Which were the same things she's been asking me for. I took the phone in haste.
'Your wife is kicking my ass,' Lisa informed me. 'I love it.'
I was pleased to hear it, but assured her the joy of nagging would shortly wear off, leaving Lisa no choice but to get extensive facial surgery to disguise her appearance and enter a witness protection program to evade Hanan's enthusiastic badgering.
'What's your new book?' I asked her.
'What book?'
'The book Hanan says you're writing.'
'I have no idea,' Lisa replied. 'She just told me to write one.'
Look, that happened to me and now I have Despite the Falling Snow, The World Unseen AND I Can't Think Straight as published novels. So, although being hounded night and day by an excitable Palestinian is not quite the romantic vision I always had of pouring out my soul in a Parisian garret, I can testify that it certainly works.
And the rest of the weekend was fabulous. I had always looked forward to the day when we could take our children for lunch and maybe an art exhibition without diapers, tantrums or whinging (mostly from me, not from them) and that day arrived yesterday. After a Chinese meal (cheaper than Norway, but with the same Eastern Celine Dion howling her heart out over the bathroom speakers - do they only have the one singer in China?) we headed to the Royal Academy to see Anish Kapoor's exhibition. Well, he may have spent years of his life and enough money to buy three Chinese meals in Oslo on this exhibition, but for my kids it was just lots of strangely reflecting mirrors, and red powdery sculptures. My inner mommy alarm went off as the boys headed with glee to a room full of soft red wax that I am sure had taken Anish months to sculpt into perfect waves. Security guards tensed as the boys approached. Old ladies took cover. But yes, they still made it out with a finger full of red wax each. Resourceful to the end. I hope it stands them in good stead later in life, rather than landing them in prison. As we were about to leave, a very beautiful young Indian woman grasped my arm and walked along with me. I knew exactly what had happened - she was with her sister, and in the chaos assumed I was her - but for a brief moment, I felt what it must be like to be Hanan, to have stunning girls throwing themselves at you all the time. Then the young woman looked at me properly, screamed and ran away. That part doesn't happen to Hanan so much. But instead of smiling and moving on, Hanan tapped the embarrassed girl on the shoulder and told her she was PRIVILEGED to have held the arm of a super famous film director. I could see the girl looking at me again, thinking 'I thought Steven Spielberg was Jewish. And a man. With a beard...' But Hanan kept talking, and by the end of it the poor girl was mortified that she had been frightened off by a truly famous celebrity. I'm sure she's a fan of this blog as we speak. If you're reading this, gallery girl, you can head over to www.lisaraniray.com now and see if Hanan's persuasiveness has worked on Lisa...

Saving Face

2009-10-01T11:26:00.001-07:00

So I just spent the last two hours on the top floor of Harrods, getting a facial, one of my many wonderful birthday presents from my Norwegian-lesbian-encrusted wife. I had dragged myself there after a morning of writing. Sadly instead of writing lesbians into Despite the Falling Snow, I ended up writing irate emails to journalists who thought Roman Polanski's arrest was outrageous. I worked myself into such an indignant fury that I got a headache and became convinced I was dying of swine flu. My head was raging, my skin felt hotter than tarmac in the desert, and only when Hanan took my temperature (without nurse's uniform or much patience) did I realise there was absolutely nothing wrong with me. Cheered by this, I presented myself at Harrods and was ushered to a purple velvet waiting room where I perched on a flamboyantly indigo velvet chaise feeling like Oscar Wilde, but without the witticisms or the boyfriend. I cast around for something to read. There was Vogue. Too many pictures. And more Vogues. More pictures. And Hello! Nothing but pictures. How puzzling. Do only illiterate women get facials, I wondered? Anyway, I was soon whisked into a room and examined by a beautician who asked me how old I was. I toyed with saying 73 just so she would tell me how great my skin looked but, having been on my moral high horse about lying film directors all morning, I hated to fib.
'I just turned 40,' I said.
'I would never have said you're 40,' she said, shocked. 'Only late 30's'
Since I was in my late 30s only a week ago, I didn't find this particularly reassuring. Never mind, she dimmed the lights and massaged my face with delicious smelling things for an hour and I forgave her and Harrods immediately.
In other news, who's joining us in Tampa? I know the Miami fans are already organising their carpool but I think more of you might consider coming over, since Sheetal just called us to say she's joining us for the screening (Friday 16th October). She asked me if I would wear a bikini in Florida. I wouldn't wear a bikini if I was the only surviving person after a nuclear holocaust. I'm not taut enough in the right places, frankly. Now, will she be wearing a bikini? I didn't ask, so make sure you come to Tampa for the right reasons! We'll also be signing DVDs, books and people's torsos (kidding about the books. I mean torsos) in aid of Lisa Ray's fund. So head to Florida for some sun and fun. I'll be the one in the floppy hat and sunglasses, protecting my 39-year-old-looking skin.

Thanks for the Movie! Can I Have Your Wife?

2009-09-27T12:47:00.001-07:00

So an hour after we landed in Oslo, we found ourselves in a Chinese restaurant (don't ask) eating dodgy chicken chop suey to a background of Chinese pop music inside (think Celine Dion with a ruptured appendix) and a lot of blond people passing by outside. The meal cost around seven thousand pounds, which I guess is why the only thing I heard about Oslo before we left was 'It's expensive. No, REALLY expensive.' An hour after that we were taken to an interview with a lovely man with 24 face piercings (I counted, while trying not to wince) and then to the Lesbian Sex panel, both of which were held on a big old cargo boat. I’m here to report that an hour of debate as to whether 'real lesbian sex' in films meant graphic happenings and hairy legs or soft lighting and sexy underwear left us all just as confused as when we’d started. I mean, has it really been a terrible chore for you all to watch Lisa in silk underwear and Sheetal with smooth legs in I Can't Think Straight and The World Unseen? Were you all secretly wishing for hairy armpits, Y-fronts and florescent lighting? Anyway, no-one complained at the screening and we signed a lot of books and DVDs afterwards as all this month’s screening sales also make the 15% sale price donation to Lisa Ray's fund. As I signed people's names, I realised that poor Norway is in dire need of importing more vowels (Ksjirty? How do you SAY that?!)
Next up was a lesbian bar for an ‘I Can’t Think Straight’ party, thrown by the generous festival organizers, where the wine flowed and so did the women - to our table. Well, they were all so polite in the cinema, but give them a drink or three, and they're all over it. Or all over Hanan, to be precise. Here's how it went. I went to the bathroom, no-one talked to me. Hanan went and some cute blonde woman accosted her for 10 minutes. Back at the table, another young woman approached told me how much she loved the movie, then asked Hanan to dance with her. Thank goodness Hanan turned her down, because it gave her time to be approached by yet another admirer who offered to explain to Hanan in detail how the tennis and polo scenes were all about sex and orgasms. I positioned myself next to a bowl of pickled herring, ready to launch a fish attack on the next person to make a pass at my wife and drained my glass of wine while I surveyed the scene. A cute blond leaned in.
'I'm sorry I just took a drink from your glass by mistake,' she said. I wasn't thrilled, but wondered if this line passed as flirtation in Oslo.
'That's OK,' I said.
'No I really am sorry,' she clarified. 'I just had swine flu.'
I laughed so hard I nearly knocked over the herring. That Scandinavian humour!
'No, really I did,' she said. 'But I'm not contagious any more.'
I resisted the urge to leap across the bar and swill my mouth with the purest vodka I could find, as I pondered just one question. Why does Hanan get the offers, and I get the swine flu? Back at the hotel, where I was dousing my swiney lips in disinfectant while complaining about every woman that had hit on her, it took Hanan about an hour to convince me I was over reading things. My new sense of calm lasted all the way up to the airplane where we found our seats, across the aisle from each other. On my side, two burly blokes welcomed me. On hers? Two thin, sexy blondes. One was reading the FT, thus proving she was smart as well as stunning. And when Hanan got up to go to the bathroom mid-flight I swear they BOTH followed her. Incensed, I finally found a use for the stopwatch part of my watch. Hanan was back in 98 seconds. I was relieved. She’s good at moving fast, but not THAT fast. But I’m not taking any chances – now we’re home, I’m getting out the burqa.

Walking With Lisa

2009-09-27T12:44:00.000-07:00

So I am looking at 40 of the most perfect, beautiful, long-stemmed red roses as I write this, one of many gifts from my even more perfect, beautiful and perfectly-stemmed wife. It was a great birthday and for many reasons I grew up a lot more than I realised I would, and in a week or two I will be able to post another fabulous gift I received on this very page. In the meantime, let's move swiftly on to lunch with Hanan yesterday, and as she leaned across for the fifth time to pick something out of my hair or off my eyelash, we were reminded of Lisa Ray's obsessive preparation for 'I Can't Think Straight'. Even though Lisa knew Tala was a fictionalised character she spent every day of the two weeks before the shoot preparing for the role by observing Hanan with the unblinking stare of a sniper. Although she is obviously used to being stared at by beautiful women (and by me), Hanan still found this somewhat unnerving, and asked Lisa what she was doing.
'Sucking out your mojo,' Lisa would reply laconically, continuing to gaze on the producer. By Hanan's standards, this answer lacked a) clarity b) definition and c) bullet points and so only unnerved her more. By the time we started shooting, the artistic and languid Lisa had assumed so much of Hanan's inner workings that she was able to 1. multitask 2. speak in bullet points and 3. pick every piece of real and imaginary fluff off Sheetal. You may notice that several of these moments made it into 'I Can't Think Straight' - in the locker room after tennis for example. Anyway, I have a theory that Lisa's stalking Hanan on set was revenge for their first meeting, a year or so before, this time in pre-casting for The World Unseen. Though ordinarily I am loathe to leave my wife in coffee shops with stunning actors, I managed to miss this meeting. Lisa showed up and they chatted for a minute or two, and then Hanan asked her what she thought of the script.
'I haven't read it,' Lisa replied.
'Have you read the book?' Hanan asked tersely.
'Nope.'
Hanan hailed a passing waiter. 'Bill please'.
But Lisa called her the next morning having stayed up all night to read the novel of The World Unseen, asked for another chance and the rest is history, and we will be championing Lisa as long as we can.

To which point, we know that Lisa is taking part in a 5 kilometer walk on 18th October and is looking for sponsorship to support the hospital which is doing fantastic work in helping her conquer both the myeloma and her lingering need to pick fluff off her co-stars. Here's the link: http://tinyurl.com/y8sb2ew

In the meantime, we'd like to announce that through our own Sarif-Kattan foundation (small, but hey, all oak trees were once acorns, and Pamela Anderson's boobs took a while to get where they are too) we will donate 15% of all sales of all products bought via the Enlightenment Productions site from today, 25th September until 31st October, to the same charity that Lisa is supporting. Books, T-shirts, soundtracks, DVDs, everything. So, if you were ever considering getting that I Can't Think Straight T-shirt for your mother to see if she understood what it meant, or if you were thinking of giving your aging grandmother The World Unseen with a note saying 'I'm more like Amina than you realised!' - now's the time! And please spread the word, so we can send Lisa a big cheque, and we'll let you know how much we raised when we're done. I considered going out and selling myself on the street, but seriously, is raising a dollar at a time efficient...?!

Sex in Scandinavia

2009-09-27T12:40:00.000-07:00

So we're off to Oslo on Saturday for a screening of I Can't Think Straight. Better than that, Hanan and I have been asked to do a panel entitled...'Real Lesbians, Real Sex'. Well, bring on the schnapps. I instantly wondered what Fake Lesbians are and whether Fake Sex might be kind of like an erotic Tai Chi, where you move around your lover without touching them. But I digress. I have a list of topics to be covered, including what constitutes real lesbian sex, and whether it is accurately portrayed on film. Well. I panicked right there. 'You picked the wrong girl!' I wanted to email back, but how could I tell them that I haven't the foggiest idea what everyone else considers to be real, since I have only shagged (sorry, I meant to say, been 'romantically involved with') one woman? Luckily, that one (yes, Hanan! Who else?) is absolutely the best in the world when it comes to the topic under discussion in Oslo. How do I know this, if I haven't tried the 'world unseen', played the field, tasted from the smorgasboard of women out there? Because Hanan TOLD me so. And I have no reason to doubt her honesty on this point, do I? However, I considered my options in order to avoid showing up in Oslo unprepared for my fans (assuming there are any). Should I research? Gain more experience? I asked my wife, to see if maybe this would shock her enough to cast aside the laptop. She narrowed her eyes at the screen and said 'Don't let the door hit you on the way out. And don't come back'. I was only asking...

In other news, these are my last days in my thirties, as Hanan never tires of reminding me, ahead of my 40th birthday tomorrow. What better way to spend them than driving up and down London looking at schools to move our kids to. Just the application process for all that has driven me nuts. Lots of registrars asking if my husband will be accompanying me to see the school. My husband? Ah, no, but I'll bring my wife. Cue a delicate British cough followed by the thing us Brits do so well, which is to pretend we understood that all along. 'Lovely. Super. Fabulous.' Clearly none of these registrars have ever attended one of my Scandinavian Sex Panels. The deep joy of trawling around schools culminated on a freezing football field in Wandsworth, watching our younger boy in his first ever match. Any romantic ideal I had of actually watching him play was cast aside as Hanan thrust the zoom lens and camera at me. 'Get plenty of action shots,' she commanded. Have you ever tried to follow a herd of 6 year-olds up and down a pitch with a zoom lens? She sighed deeply and took back the camera, handing me the video instead. Our team lost 14-nil, and now it's all recorded for posterity. When we watched the playback, there was all this noise and shouting. 'Who is that obnoxious woman yelling at her kid to get the ball?' I asked, a moment before I realised it was me. Oops. Let's hope turning 40 gives me some maturity...

Shamim Sarif's Six Degrees of Semi-Separation

2009-09-17T13:46:00.000-07:00

Try saying that title very fast after a big glass of wine. I just did, and it's impossible. Or maybe it wasn't the wine that scrambled my brain but the three hours intense interaction with my adorable, argumentative children. When they are asleep they are so cute I could just eat them. And when they wake up, I am invariably sorry that I didn't. Anyway, I digress. What's new? Well, let me tell you. I received an email from a fan. Yes, one of the 1600 band of sisters and brothers who are bound together by ecstasy over The World Unseen, I Can't Think Straight, Leonie Casanova, or perhaps one of the thousand or so who just stumbled on me while looking for someone else beginning with Sh, like Shania Twain, Sherpa Tenzing or perhaps Sheetal Sheth. Anyway, this fan, Madison Le, who (like Sariena Carmichael) shall remain nameless lest I infringe on her privacy, told me she would like to donate items from the Enlightenment Productions catalogue (of incredibly high-quality yet reasonably priced products) as PRIZES. Yes. Another competition. I know what you're thinking. What on earth happened to the first competition? A long story, but I can shorten things as well as any Hong Kong tailor, so the story with the first competition, for the best fan video, is that we launched in a shower of sparks with a rather wonderful video (which you can see on this site) and then crashed in a ball of flame while waiting for our Indian IT people to actually sort out our site so we can receive entries. That will happen by tomorrow or Hanan will be on a plane to Delhi armed with her Palestinian methods of persuasion (including ropes and houmus).
In the meantime, Madison suggested another game of 'Six Degrees of Separation from Shamim'. Eg she met 'Jenny' from the L Word. Jenny knows Carmen. I know (barely) Sarah Shahi which = 2 degrees. This idea was scuppered straight off by my co-writer, neighbour and now ex-friend Kelly Moss who emailed a long list of immediate prizewinners, highlights including:

Kelly Moss...'i stare at her every day, in fact i'm staring at her right now!"
Ethan & Luca Sarif-Kattan......'we ignore her threats every day'
grocery delivery man....'i deliver 87 chickens to her every week'
Hanan Kattan... 'I've slept with her!'

Added to the fact that half my family and a lot of fans I MET at festivals are on this site, who all therefore have 0 degrees of separation, this isn't going to work. But Madison has another idea. Degrees of Shamim + 1. So to win, a fan must:

1. establish connection from me to them, however many degrees (photos welcome, I have nothing to fear having never been snapped mud wrestling or on the floor of a bar, at least not that I recall) AND THEN

2. establish a NEW connection, who has never heard of me, or seen/read my movies/books. The new connection must sign on as a new fan to this FB page and provide testimony to their introduction/interest to me and my work. And if, as I am sure all of you have, you've already bored your friends senseless talking about all things Enlightenment, then think of it as a chance to go out and find new friends!

One prize of a DVD will be awarded to the new connection and one prize of a T shirt to the fan.The first three pairs to both post are winners. And I'm going to let Madison judge. Instead of her donating the prizes, we'll donate them, and Madison will make the equivalent donation to Lisa Ray's chosen Myeloma fund. I think the Just Fans page should be where the connections should be posted. Confused? Don't be. Just let's see how it goes. Now y'all go forth and multiply.

Mum's the Word

2009-09-13T13:20:00.000-07:00

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Just back from Surrey, and a visit to my mother's with the boys. My aunt is here from Canada so it was great to see her too and another aunt I haven't seen in ages. I left Hanan at home to catch up with work. Or so she said. By the time we arrived, I was about ready to spit, because the combination of Luca asking 'Are we there yet?' every 10 seconds, and Ethan tormenting me with a 10 inch long rubber fly (yes like a disgusting house fly with eyes and wings and everything) had made me drive like a Formula One hopeful. As we screeched into the parking area, gravel flying, my sister (who I had recruited for emotional support) confirmed that this hour trapped in a moving metal capsule with my offspring had been the best contraceptive she'd had in a while.
We rang the bell 17 times in 10 seconds (Ethan is very talented with reflexes) and we went in. It was like stepping onto the set of Lord of the Rings. Over there in the Hobbit corner we had my mother and aunts, all 5 feet nothing of them. Over here we had my boys, long and beanpole-like and also nearly 5 feet tall despite being 10 and 6. It was very disconcerting overall, like being in a surreal soap opera for the vertically challenged. I darted around, feeling very tall, while my mother whipped out doughnuts and assorted goodies from the fridge and eyed me narrowly when I told Ethan to check the sell-by dates on anything that came out of his grandmother's fridge.
'Food lasts at least 4 days past the sell-by date,' my mother informed me with a hurt sniff.
'Yes but if it walks out by itself, it should go,' I returned. In case you're wondering what my mother looks like, she had a cameo in The World Unseen, as the mother of the 'suitable boy' that is set up for dinner with Amina. She gave a bravura performance that totally justified every diva fit she had about hair and make up and frankly, I think if Sheetal had any decency, she's give up the Best Actress awards and hand 'em over to a woman admittedly smaller in stature, but a giant amongst actors. Though, again, it was all in the direction. As we rolled the camera, I asked my mother to imagine how she felt when I first told her about Hanan. Or when she first ate a lemon. Either way, it worked. Anyway, I digress. We came, we ate, we eventually left and careered back to London. A long drive that I've made a thousand times, towards and away from Hanan, back in the old days. But it felt longer today, perhaps because of a wistful realisation that home may stay the same, but I haven't. Or maybe it just felt longer because I had a black rubber insect eyeing me from the back seat. Far better philosophers than I have pondered this dilemma. In the meantime, it turned out that Hanan had not only caught up on emails but had met a friend who'd invited her to the Berkeley Hotel for lunch. 'Really?' I asked, pleasantly. 'So while I was schlepping 50 miles with two overactive little people to meet Frodo for lunch, you were hanging out at the coolest hotel in Knightsbridge?' That 's what I meant to say, but what came out was - 'How was that?' She grinned, cheekily. 'Oh, it was all right.'

Sheetal Speaks!

2009-09-10T13:46:00.001-07:00

So Hanan asked our leading ladies what they thought of the new, incredibly sexy Box Set of I Can't Think Straight and The World Unseen. This is what Sheetal said:
'THE WORLD UNSEEN and I CANT THINK STRAIGHT together???? love it. Just got my box set and i am so excited that everyone is able to grab both of these movies that meant so much to us and we loved making! fabulous gift idea - treat yourself or a friend!! enjoy!'
So there. You love her and she loves it! Enough said. She is a woman of good taste, obviously. And the people of Dallas, Texas are equally tasteful, having just today announced Ms Sheth 'Best Actress in a Leading Role' at their festival for her performance in The World Unseen. Now all of you Sheetal fans want to know how she is on set. Let me tell you. She's there early, she's always super-prepared, she eats carbohydrates as if preparing for a famine and she still has a flat stomach. And she gives me a hard time for being a Brit, and I might now and then accuse her of the worst stereotypes of her fellow countrymen. If ever there was the clashing of two cultures on set it happened between Sheetal (representing America in the red, white & blue corner) and me (representing the British Empire in the..er..red, white and blue corner). So, apparently, for Sheetal it was laughable when the director of the movie ate her breakfast toast with a knife and fork. (In my defence, it takes proper implements to carve out the perfect mouthful of fried breakfast). And for me, I wept every time I shouted 'Cut', and Sheetal reverted to her American accent. But we reached a truce, where she just smirked while watching me eat, and I cringed only inwardly when she called Hanan 'HK'. (I hope you are getting the irony in all this, Mumbai journalists, who like to quote my blog - it's a joke!). I couldn't have had a better Leyla or Amina. Especially one that has the same initials as me. And as for the last question you all have - are those really her eyes? Well, I tried to get her contact lenses out, and I can tell you with complete authority that they are...

Lisa

2009-09-08T10:40:00.001-07:00

I know you'll all forgive me not being terribly funny today. It's been a devastating time for us, since June, since finding out that Lisa has multiple myeloma. And if we felt bad, how much more has Lisa gone through...But what she learned and shared with us in June provided the ultimate test of how we, as human beings, react when thrown beneath the strongest pressure and when forced to face our biggest fears without flinching. And I am in awe, and inspired by, Lisa's reaction. Grace, elegance of spirit, clarity of vision. No complaining, no whining, no anger. Wow. I whine every day (as you all know!) about the silliest things. We all do. And it is something inherent in most human nature that, regretfully, we learn to appreciate and be grateful most when we are faced with the possibility of losing all we hold dear. Lisa was never like that, I have to say. She is someone with a rare zest for life, with a throaty laugh that you hear a lot when you're around her, someone who is introverted and thoughtful, but also appreciative of the little joys of life. What's truly admirable is that nothing in her attitude has changed. I know many of you feel upset and depressed by the news, because the movies have that rare and magical ability to transport you to a place you feel you know, and to put before you images of a face, a smile, and gestures that you learn to understand and predict, and which give you a feeling of knowing that person intimately. And I know you all appreciate the work she has done in all her movies, as well as The World Unseen and I Can't Think Straight. So I would say, acknowledge the sorrow, but let's give her the message that we visualise her in perfect health and starring in many more Enlightenment movies. There is a cure for everything that ails us - we just need to find it, or allow the body to find it. And if anyone has the mind and spirit to allow that healing to happen, it's Lisa.
Besides, I have two more scripts waiting, Lisa. And nice try, but you don't get off that easily...

Your Turn to Make the Movie

2009-09-06T13:44:00.001-07:00

Well, the only thing better than watching Lisa Ray and Sheetal Sheth play Tala and Leyla or Amina and Miriam, is watching them do it in slow motion. I discovered this truth a few months ago when I innocently visited YouTube to check out the Enlightenment Productions channel (how kind of you to ask, it's http://www.youtube.com/user/EnlightenmentProds) and up popped that 'Related Videos You Might Like' window on the side. Hmm, I thought deeply as I scrolled down. 'Sheetal Sheth kiss!' was one title. Been there, directed that. I moved on. And there they were. Hundreds of 'Lisa & Sheetal', 'Tala & Leyla', 'Amina & Miriam' videos. The lists went on and on, and I found myself compulsively clicking at random to find slow motion love scenes set to Bryan Adams. And then a slow motion love scene set to Celine Dion (moved on quickly from that, forgive me). And a slow motion love scene set...you get the picture. Maybe you MADE the picture. And if you did, or if you think you can do better, then you are in luck. With the advice of Sariena Carmichael, formerly a fan, now unofficial Head of Marketing at Enlightenment Headquarters (I like that idea, don't you? EP HQ! We could have holograms of Lisa and Sheetal everywhere, and compulsory wine breaks every hour) we are about to launch our first ever competition to make a fan video, from scenes from I Can't Think Straight or The World Unseen or both, if you have incredible stamina and the ability to stay conscious when faced with a double dose of Lisa and Sheetal. There are rules, and while we at Enlightenment know that rules are made to be broken, these ones should be adhered to. They'll be up on our website (www.enlightenment-product

ions.com, like you didn't know that) tomorrow. And better than that, Hanan and I are starring in our own three minute video to introduce the competition which will be on the EP site and on this page, if our video-maker Esperanza - former 'employee of the month' - can overcome what she herself acknowledges as an addiction to Spanish time, which means she is 2 days behind every deadline. It took every ounce of self-will for Hanan and I not to recreate the love scenes in slow motion, but in the end, we decided that we love and appreciate you all, and couldn't put you through it. You can thank us later.

Lisa Ray

2009-09-04T15:08:00.001-07:00

I will cut my hair like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, I will hug a cow, I will wear lederhosen, or all three of the above. Just get me back to Switzerland. Yes, in the grey light of London, I bitterly regret every snipe I ever made about cuckoo clocks and boring neighbours. Having spent two arduous hours buying school shoes (you queue for an hour to get served, then you argue with your child who wants the red, flashy, EXPENSIVE football boots, then you get fitted by an assistant who lost the will to live three days before, give in to the child, go home and get asked by your wife what you were doing all afternoon) I am ready for a life of self-imposed solitude by a Swiss lake. I don't care if I have to listen to 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' for the rest of my life in the tearoom.
However, every cloud has a silver lining, or as they say in the Middle East, every bleating lamb can make a good kebab (before you all go up in arms, I don't think anyone in the Middle East ever said that, but I'm struggling for metaphors amid the school runs, homework and office so give me a break OK?) And the silver lining for me was that Lisa Ray sent me the link to her new website. In fact, I think it's her first ever website. I was a bit annoyed, frankly, when I found that she'd used that photo for the home page, because I had just taken photos of myself lying back, with my hand in my long mane of hair, staring smoulderingly at the camera, and was going to use that for MY site, but it's too late now. Other than that, I love this site. And not just because it has photos of Lisa on it. It's clean, lean, contemporary, sexy. Just like Lisa herself. And if that isn't enough, she has a quote from poet ee cummings on there. What more do you want? Spread a little happiness to everyone you know and pass this link along...http://www.lisaraniray.com/

Sagging Bosom Seeks Uplift

2009-08-30T11:57:00.000-07:00

OK, I need to start by saying that - despite the snappy title - this is not meant to be a funny blog. I have not spent the day nit-picking Hanan's behaviour (well, I have) but not so I can complain to you now. Instead, I bring you exciting news on the marketing front which is that one of our fans Zelia Hagiwara - yes, the very same fan who offered me her sagging bosom to rest my weary head upon - has kindly offered to spearhead the online marketing efforts for The World Unseen and I Can’t Think Straight films, books & music.
Zelia will be working closely with Hanan & myself but not so closely that we can tell if her booty is really drooping or not. I suspect that secretly, she looks like Beyonce. In fact, she may actually BE Beyonce for all I know, and I will have Hanan drop her a little email in Russian to check.
But, I digress. Zelia would appreciate any help from fans who are willing to put in a bit of free time in a grassroots efforts to help sales and awareness. Any motivated fans who have the time to support, please contact Zelia directly on her e-mail below and DO NOT pester her about her bosom, ok?

zelialobohagiwara@yahoo.co

m

Need motivation? Just think of I Can't Think Straight 2 (featuring 6 love scenes) and The World Unseen 2 - Omar's Revenge. These tasteful and life-changing films can only be brought to you if we can repay the women who invested in us for these films

Need time? Then stop reading this and email Zelia!

Need a bosom to cry on? Email Zelia!

So many of you have done a ton of amazing work, and continue to do so, and you know who you are so I won't name even the most brilliant of you, Sariena Carmichael (oops). Sariena continues to single-handedly hunt down anyone who has ever THOUGHT of illegally downloading and elegantly persuade them not to, while simultaneously marketing (and the next announcement will be one of her brilliant ideas). What have I done to deserve such wonderful supporters? (That's rhetorical, I ain't fishing for compliments). I'm going to go now, and see if my own Beyonce impersonation will lure Hanan away from her Macbook. Hold on....
OK, I'm back. And it didn't. Sigh.

Lesbians in Quicksand

2009-08-28T12:31:00.000-07:00

So Ethan woke me up this morning with an idea for a movie.
'Not those lesbian-type movies you make now like The World Unseen but a kid's movie!'
'A lesbian kids movie?' I mumbled, half-asleep. Before he could launch into Act 3 of his storyline (involving scary men disappearing into quicksand) I fled the house in search of a quiet place where I could write without interruption, maybe a Hemingway-esque cafe where I could nurse a drink and think great thoughts. I ended up in the local bakery. Where Papa Hemingway looked up from his Chablis and saw chic young Parisian girls across the room, I had Swiss matrons when I glanced up from my coffee, but I was determined not to lose the moment - that is, until the background music came into aural focus. Why do Swiss tearooms always play the greatest hits from 1983? I love Bonnie Tyler as much as the next lesbian but, you know, there are only so many total eclipses of the heart you can stand before you have to pack up and go home.
Back at the homestead, I found that while I had been opening my heart and soul to plumb the depths of the human psyche in search of a rare glimpse of truth (ie, while I had been writing a page of a script), Hanan had taken a break from marketing I Can't Think Straight to email an ex-boyfriend who had tracked her down out of the blue. Worse, this was not even one of the 5 ex-fiances, this was an 'over and above' boyfriend.
'Arab?' I asked, trying to be conversational.
'German,' she answered.
'Hmm. Ugly?' (My conversational capacity is limited when it comes to chewing the fat over exes)
'Stunningly handsome,' she said. 'Blue eyes, broad chest, tall, muscles..'
All right, okay, I had the picture. And he'd sent another, an update from 30 years ago when he had met Hanan at hotel school here in Switzerland. Yes, you read that right. Hanan was at hotel school for about 30 minutes, many moons ago. She made it through the Patisserie course, only to break out of the campus when it came to Butchery, realising that her true lot in life was to stay at Ritz-Carltons, not run them. I wondered if perhaps Herr Hotel School had put on weight, perhaps lost all his hair. But no, he looked pretty good. I called for Ethan to
tell me how that quicksand worked again, but he wasn't interested any more. You know, I think I should just just run back down to the bakery, pick up some cakes and borrow that Pet Shop Boys CD, and invite all the exes over in one go. What a blog that would be...

I Can't Think Straight goes straight

2009-08-24T11:56:00.000-07:00

So 'I Can't Think Straight' opens theatrically in India on 11th September. The idea of 'Leesa Ray' as a lesbian sent everyone into a tailspin on the subcontinent even when we cast her, so I can't wait to see what happens now. First up, it's been rated 'A' - I was thrilled, as everyone likes to get an A grade for their creative genius - but Hanan quickly explained it was for 'Adults Only'. Within a moment I went from feeling like the new Scorsese to feeling like I'd inadvertently made a porn film. It gets worse. The Indian censors cut the film. Which part, you cry? Did they disagree that life insurance sells itself? Did they take exception to Maya forbidding Yasmin to backpack 'in India of all places'? Or could it possibly, perhaps, maybe be that they chopped my tasteful sex scene (yes, the 2nd one apparently) to smithereens? Reader, they did. Well, I can hear you all gasping from here. Which is just as well, as we certainly won't be hearing Lisa or Sheetal panting over there. Never mind, we will just drive around Mumbai and sell the real DVDs (with 'extra sex scene!') out of the back of an auto-rickshaw...
In other news, things in sleepy Switzerland have been shaken up recently, with the arrival of some of Hanan's family staying in the house attached to the one we're in (which belongs to her dad, it's all very complicated). They've been a blast, and with the intense heat pulling the Palestinian Jordanians, the Pakistan/Canadian neighbours, and us out in the evenings, it's all like a much greener version of downtown Lahore or Amman. Loving it. The sheep are loving it somewhat less, and I swear, when the Arabs fired up the barbecue, those sheep sensed a shawarma in their near future and they RAN - faster than a Mumbai censor.

On set on The World Unseen

2009-08-21T08:20:00.001-07:00

In the 'Producer's Guide to Low Budget Filmmaking', written by Hanan Kattan (don't rush to Amazon, she hasn't had time to actually write it yet) there are two main requirements:
1. Seduce the writer and director (if they are one and the same, like Shamim Sarif, it saves time and a candlelight dinner)
2. Employ your children and pay them in South African rands so they think they're being paid handsomely.
Which is how Ethan, our eldest, came to be on The World Unseen set, having breakfast at 5am with Lisa Ray. Between mouthfuls of baked beans, he asked her how much she was making on the film. Lisa arched an eyebrow and advised him to get an agent. But by then it was too late, the contracts were signed and he was being paid a pittance to be attacked by South African cops. Now you can't find a more charming pair than Colin Moss and Rod Priestley, who played the policemen in The World Unseen. But I'd asked them to keep a distance from the kids, so Ethan was a little nervous of them by the time that scene came around. I had also had the camera movement rehearsed without the kids, so when we shot handheld, it might be fresh. Well, fresh it was. The camera rolled, I yelled 'Action' and they grabbed the kids, and gave Ethan a cuts on his arms while hustling him into the police van. Ethan finished the take, turned to me and burst into tears, terrified. We took him to the side, comforted him, and held him.
'I'm not doing that again!' he cried.
Faced with that choice - my petrified, imploring child, or getting the right take..I chose the take.
'You're back on in 5, kid,' I said. Well, not exactly, but you get the drift. And he did it twice more with Hanan calculating future therapy bills over my shoulder. I should say that when he isn't being brutalised by police, Ethan and his brother Luca are more known for never hesitating to argue, resist bedtimes or be selectively deaf when their mothers are addressing them. So I thought Luca would have no problem playing Miriam's cheeky nephew (the one who sticks his tongue out early on). Another cast salary saved...and I must say that their acting has only continued to improve, as just yesterday they swore blind that they'd tidied their room and I walked in to find it looking like hungry looters had passed through.
They may not have made their fortunes yet, but you can't put a price on being Lisa Ray's son for a while, frankly, or on being baby sat by Leonie Casanova (she's still recovering but the therapists say her new phobia of children will pass). True, Luca lost a tooth in a pillow fight with Lisa Ray, but they think it's completely normal to see Aunty Lisa at the movies, or hear Aunty Leonie sing 'Broken' on the CD player. They were also the kids in the park in the last scene of I Can't Think Straight (a movie which took employing family and friends in cameos to new heights). Immortalised on film forever... In fact, I may actually send them an invoice...

Hiking with Hanan

2009-08-16T02:54:00.000-07:00

We spent the day hiking the other day. Ah, the smell of wild grass and Swiss wildflowers, a chance to discover The World Unseen for real, the pungent aroma of cow dung and and delicate scent of...croissants. Yes, folks, this was no ordinary hike. Backpacks and dried fruit are so 'last decade'. We hiked (as we do everything where Hanan is involved) with style and with real food. It began when we dropped off the boys for a day at summer camp. We dropped them right by a bakery and it would have been churlish not to buy pain au chocolat, so we did. I regretted inhaling these as soon as we began a wild ride up the mountain in a vehicle the size of Texas. Why do they make cars so big in a country with such small roads? Hanan's habit of fiddling while driving (with the radio, with a nail file, with packets of sweets) is sometimes endearing, sometimes admirable (how does she unwrap sweets, change CDs, make a list and drive all at once?) but on hairpin mountain bends it is simply terrifying.

However, we arrived, in one piece, and parked up at a little restaurant at the top. I jumped out, ready to set off up the trail towards our date with Mother Nature. 'Shall we have a hot chocolate first? Since we're here?' Hanan asked. We sat and snorted liquid chocolate which helped ease the motion sickness nicely. And then we set off. Three and a half minutes into the hike, Hanan stopped and took off her (our) backpack. 'We should re-hydrate' she advised whipping out a bottle of Evian. We re-hydrated. Two minutes later, she stopped again, to re-apply sunblock.
'Isn't this a little excessive?' I ventured.
'Do you want to married to someone with wrinkles like chasms?'
'Er...no. I mean, yes. I mean, I don't mind either way.'
I decided to keep quiet and just hike. When my wife was ready. Off we went again. After twenty minutes (and three more water breaks) we reached a tiny village with 15 chalets, no electricity but one (you guessed it) restaurant.
'All this exercise is making me hungry,' Hanan said.
All this exercise? I was wishing I'd gone for a run before we'd left. I'd had more exercise flicking channels on TV. This must be what it's like hiking in Beverley Hills or Mayfair. We stopped. Hanan ordered a cappuccino and a croissant and was met by blank stares. There was only one breakfast and it was 4 slabs of bread, 2 slabs of butter, 2 hunks of Swiss cheese and a trough of homemade jam.

We hiked on, for a full 30 minutes and then Hanan started looking for shade and a place to sit down. We sat and I watched with misgiving as she started rummaging in the backpack. I was sure she had firewood, matches and a spit-ready chicken in there. But no, out came an ominously large wad of paper and two pens. I tried not to look alarmed.
'I thought this would be a good place to do our goals', she said.
Goals? I thought. My goal is to walk fast enough to get my heart rate past that of a ninety-year-old's. But, alas, that was not what she meant. So we sat and wrote out our goals for the year. I left out 'taking Sundays off' as I didn't want to antagonise a woman who hadn't eaten for 15 minutes...finally, we were done. Our first goals were remarkably similar. To lose weight and get fitter. With that in mind, we hiked the 20 minutes back to the same (the only) restaurant, and just asked for 'lunch'. Up came plates of rosti (grated, fried potatoes) layered with bacon and slathered with melted cheese. Hanan looked at me.
'What about our goal?' she asked.
'Let's start tomorrow.' I said and tucked in...

Silence of the Lambs

2009-08-14T08:14:00.001-07:00

Remember the blog about our dinner at the Swiss neighbours? Why would you, it was like, 30 blogs ago, and while I know certain of you know the entire script of I Can't Think Straight by heart, and others know exactly how many times Lisa Ray sighs in The World Unseen, I am sure you haven't committed every blog to memory just yet. I digress, as usual. My point is, tonight was payback time and we had them over to our place. I was under instructions to make it quick which worked for me, the hermit of the family. I asked Hanan if I should just meet them at the door with the roast chicken, but she drew the line there. Well, I learned many things this evening:
1. Even discussing local garbage regulations in French sounds sexy (when Hanan does it, not the neighbours)
2. One should never try to use British irony, especially when communicating in school girl French. When they asked what I thought of the sheep that are grazing at the end of our garden, I said (tried to say) they made me feel hungry. There was a horrible silence during which I felt like Hannibal Lecter and we could only hear the little tinkling bells around the lambs' necks.
3. One should not look directly at a yawning man who wears dentures, especially loose dentures.
Anyway, you get the gist. On the plus side, for once time did not seem to fly. In fact it sort of dragged. Till the conversation about supermarkets, then time just stood still. But they left, and now I have a moment to write this before crashing. I was up late last night, grilling Hanan about her five ex-fiances. I get them mixed up, especially since many came around the block more than once. Once in a while I like to remind myself of the order and the cause of the break up, even though it leaves me broken out in an icy sweat as I realise I have married the original runaway bride. But more of the break-ups later. Enough drama there to make Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor look like a couple of Swiss neighbours...

L Word is for Lucky

2009-08-08T12:22:00.000-07:00

Was watching an episode or two of The L Word the other night - purely for work purposes, you understand, studying structure and all that, and I completely ignored all the gratuitous sex (by which time the episode was over) - but it did remind me that we had thought about Sarah Shahi ('Carmen') for the role of Leyla, just after we cast Lisa Ray and were still looking for someone for her to fall in love with...Anyway, we sent her the script and she loved it, but was worried about being typecast and was tired of lesbian sex. I know, how is such a thing possible? But I guess day in, day out panting and writhing on The L Word would make anyone beg to keep their clothes on and just watch the food channel with a cup of tea. She was good enough to call me and explain all this, and I think it probably didn't help that Hanan and I had not one film industry credit to our names (and had never been on a film set, not that I rushed to mention that on the phone with Sarah) and doing I Can't Think Straight would have meant her flying to London to be with people she didn't know and no-one in LA had ever heard of. I am SURE she regrets it now :) but no matter, we found our Leyla in the end and maybe Sarah would do something in the TV version of I Can't Think Straight, should it get off the ground. Ideas for her role? In the meantime, I have to risk being asked to give up my After Ellen International Lesbian of the Year Award because I have done what no self-respecting lesbian would ever do - I actually had Carmen's mobile phone number and lost it.

In other news, Aida (who perhaps has a tad too much time on her hands right now) suggests that I come up with some alternative uses for the extra PAL DVD of I Can't Think Straight that some of you ended up with due to a factory error. I've been told that the problem is solved, and that special packages are now in beautiful new slip cases (ideal for gifts! Hanan says). In the meantime, Aida says you can play frisbee with the spare DVD. It also makes a handy coaster for hot drinks, and two of them would be great earrings that would certainly make a statement (even if the statement is 'I am bored AND tasteless') - and if you string twelve together you have your own funky ICTS necklace that is even cooler than the pink silicone bracelet in your pack. Please don't thank us, multi-tasking and multi-use is what we do here at Enlightenment. Even Lisa and Sheetal played two characters each, right?!

I Can't Think Straight...and I Can't Hear a Thing!

2009-08-05T12:17:00.000-07:00

So I've finished the pilot episode of I Can't Think Straight the TV show. There is no better feeling in the world than finishing a piece of writing. OK, there is one better feeling, but I'm not going into that here, you catch my drift. But I'll tell you what, figuring out an hour's worth of drama for 13 consecutive episodes is exhausting (and a lot of fun). Being a quiet girl from Surrey, I had trouble coming up with enough drama, insanity and plot. Being a feisty world citizen from Palestine, Hanan had trouble toning all her drama down. She just had to go back about 6 months into her family's history...anyway, I digress. As we went for a mid-morning swim to celebrate (absolutely unheard of for Hanan to take half an hour off in the day, even here in Switzerland, and I still suspect there's going to be a downside, like rewriting all night) we were thinking back to everything we've been through getting the movie of I Can't Think Straight to the screen. Frankly, there's enough there for 30 blogs, but what most people don't realise is one of our biggest challenges (other than losing the movie, spending 18 months chasing it through courts, and getting it back) was that we never got back the sound.

Sure you did, I hear you cry. We can hear Tala and Leyla panting just fine. Well, it was all recreated from scratch. Forgive me if I am telling you stuff you already know, but when you shoot a film, you shoot the picture on film and the sound on tape and the two are synced for editing, but don't actually meet again till you make the final print. So we got back the film itself, but the sound was gone, held hostage by the crooked first investor.

Sadly, this meant a lot of dubbing. That meant every actor coming into a studio with me and re-recording their lines in sync with the existing film picture. And giving a good performance. Yes, this involved being in a small darkened room with Lisa Ray for a week but it was hard work, trust me! After a while, it's like a bizarre Groundhog Day. Every day you get up, schlep to the studio, drink coffee, eat the pastries they have lying around and try and direct the film again in the dark with one actor.

The thing I loved about Lisa on set was that every take of a single line would be different, and often with subtle changes to the line. But we didn't love it so much as we stared at the screen trying to decide what she was saying to Leyla. And then every background sound, touch, rustle of clothing and atmosphere had to be added (foleys and effects). And all mixed together. There's only one thing worse than doing sound mixing from scratch, and that is doing sound mixing from scratch in Mumbai. Overdosed on daal, I spent long nights (why does everyone work all night in India?) trying to match sync to a picture that was out of focus...before Hanan managed to get a deal from Pinewood Studios to finish the mix.

I loved many things about India, but going from there to Pinewood was like going from - how do I put this - Lamia to Tala. There's a difference in sensibility. They were shooting the last couple of days of the Bond film, and next door, with the same mixers, was a small movie called Slumdog Millionaire. I hope it did OK...

Pirates of the Cappuccino

2009-08-01T09:53:00.001-07:00

Thirteen years later, I’ve finally discovered the way to send Hanan insane with pleasure. But before you feel sorry for her 13 year drought, you should understand that all I did was make her the perfect cappuccino. So what, you might ask? We live in a frappacino world, baby. But Hanan is someone who, when ordering coffee (or anything else for that matter) makes Meg Ryan in ‘When Harry Met Sally’ look decisive. Her cappuccino has to be like me after a long day’s writing – weak and skinny (I wish). And it has to have a lot of foam and then just a sprinkle of brown sugar and a dusting of chocolate. You can imagine how that request goes down in a stolid Swiss village tea room. Like a bucket of fondue.
So I armed myself with this vibrating instrument (get your minds out of the gutter) that makes milk froth, and set to work creating a perfect cappuccino at home. On the plus side, it worked, and my wife thinks I am a genius. On the down side, that’s three hours of my day gone brewing, frothing, sprinkling and shaking. When I look back and ask myself why I never won the Nobel Prize for Literature, I can say, at least I made the perfect cappuccino.
Anyway, this is not the point of the blog and, as usual, I digress. What I wanted to tell you is that we were in the sole Indian shop in this Swiss town (yes, there is one, open all hours, and yes, we found it!) buying lime pickle and basmati rice, when we saw a pile of Hindi DVDs. The Indian shopkeeper saw an opportunity and rushed over to plug them.
‘Only 10 francs, Madam.'
'No, I don't do Bollywood, thanks' I said snootily.
'Want English Hindi fillum, Madam?' he asked and before I could wonder what an English Hindi 'fillum' could possibly be, I swear to you, he whipped out a PIRATED copy of The World Unseen. Complete with disgusting cover with Lisa's face touched up with more Bollywood-style makeup.
I said ‘Hey, that’s my film!’. He didn’t understand. So I shouted (I was upset) ‘This DVD is MY fillum!’. ‘Yes, madam,’ he said. ‘For 10 francs this is YOUR fillum...’
I gave up and paid him the 10 francs.
I couldn’t believe it. In the Swiss Alps, we found our first pirated copy. I took a picture of Hanan holding it (below). When we got home, I put it in the player. It came up with a menu for subtitle and SONGS. I clicked with trepidation, trying to prepare mentally for Amina to come flying out of the café singing 'It’s Raining Women, Halleljuah!'. Luckily the song menu was blank. But the rest of it wasn't. I'm depressed frankly. Though on the plus side, the front of this copy told us that we'd won the Toronto Film Festival, which frankly, was news to us. We found out a Hong Kong company called Applewood is manufacturing DVDs by the millions. Find them, my fans. And exterminate. In the meantime, we're teaming with a company in Belgium and Netherlands to intercept this stuff, so if you see any of these copies, let us know. Your director and producer need you. Or we'll have to go work in a coffee bar...

The Wedding Crashers

2009-07-30T11:49:00.000-07:00

I'm back! Three days ago I was hijacked while walking up the hill from the Swiss village nearest us, clutching my paper bag of croissants ('never walk long distances without carbs' is on the Sarif family's coat of arms). A woman with suspiciously curly hair and a sexy Arabic accent attacked me with a Macbook, and the last thing I remember as I lost consciousness with a croissant stuffed into my mouth, was that she was asking for my Facebook password...Well, I am glad you all bonded while I was script writing, but I have to tell you, that photo of our wedding day reminded me that ONLY my wife could have proposed getting married right in the middle of pre-production on I Can't Think Straight. Yes, not only were we desperately finding crew, locations and Eastern women who could act and also consent to lesbian love scenes, but we were also planning a wedding! And this was how it went:
HK: 'Let's get married now.'
SS: 'I can't think about marriage. I can't think about anything except I Can't Think Straight'
HK: It'll be a piece of cake.'
I don't know how she persuades me into these hair-brained schemes but I actually MADE the wedding cake (yes, I am a sucker) in between rewriting the script and drawing up shot lists. Our costume designer made our wedding outfits between sourcing clothes for Tala and Leyla. By the time the day arrived, I had no idea if I was shooting a wedding or marrying a film. I begged for a honeymoon but suddenly I didn't have a wife, I had a producer, and I had to go back to auditioning actresses (why do I sense you're not feeling that sorry for me?!)
Would I do it all again? In a heartbeat. The only thing better than marrying a real-life Tala is casting the pretend one at the same time, right...?

Hanan Takes Over the Blog

2009-07-29T10:26:00.001-07:00

Hello Shamim’s fans. Hanan here.

Yes I don’t use FB (emails are high tech enough for me & take too much time) but I decided to say hello, to say a few things and to share new links with you of a recent interview with Shamim that Aida, my baby sister, sent me last night from LA.

I want to start by saying 'thank you' for your incredible support and help in supporting our work and in spreading the word. It is so much appreciated at many levels and thank you for being part of the journey with us.

After 13 wonderful & tough years together (mainly due to family drama), Shamim remains the love of my life and there are not enough words to describe how I feel about her (it is handy that there is one writer in the family who is eloquent). Yes, she nags & complains that I don’t give her a break but do you blame me?? She is such a talented & brilliant novelist, script writer, film director and songwriter that it would be a travesty if she did not spend more of her time on creating incredible work that inspires, moves, motivates while entertaining.

Like most creative artists, she can drift (that is my excuse) and needs focus (of course she disagrees) and I normally let her go on complaining (while I switch off) & when she finishes I am onto the next thing asking her when will she have her first draft ready (by which time she is ready to throw me out of the window – luckily we live on the first floor).

As a first time director, she has created two amazing features films that are different genres The World Unseen which is a period piece and I Can’t Think Straight, a contemporary romantic comedy, and she switched the roles of the extroverted Tala to Miriam and the introverted Lelya to Amina in both films which shows her incredible depth & range in directing. And by choosing actresses who could rise up to the challenge so elegantly & beautifully is a talent in itself.

I am not sure if any of you have been on a movie set or know what it takes to produce & direct a movie (if you watch some of the videos on our Enlightenment Productions channel, you will get a glimpse of the behind the scenes of making a movie). One has to be passionate & a bit Mad to do what we do but it is a satisfying & thrilling process despite the stresses, the long hours & the sleepless nights. And we are glad that you all have the good taste to enjoy the end result.

Besides Shamim’s brilliance with films & novels , she is a wonderful cook and makes sinful & orgasmic deserts (not good on the weight front), she plays the piano beautifully (if she only has more time to play), she is an amazing mother to our two boys (& does all the homework), she is much better than I am in finance & numbers (it comes in handy when shooting a film to stay on budget) & she is an amazing partner and wife and she makes me laugh a lot with her sense of humour (which you have all enjoyed in her various work).

Ok, so can one person be so perfect you ask? Besides her mood swings (which I excuse due to her artistic temperament), her introverted hermit like existence (as she prefers being alone creating than mixing with people), living in her head half the time creating stories & characters (yes, it can get lonely), getting grouchy if she has to sleep late (ie past 10 pm) and her jealousy thinking that every woman who looks at me falls for me (clearly she is still in love or blind and I remind her that even though she had me up for sale, I did not get one bid!), Shamim is the most amazing partner I can ask for and when she starts complaining, I tell her to go complain to her fans as I am too busy (which I normally am). So thank you for dealing with her complaints when she is venting.

So, Shamim’s fans, thank you for your support and for enjoying her blogs (which make me laugh when I read them even though I am the punching bag), And this time I get to choose a picture for her blog; from our wedding.

Here are the links to the interview; enjoy and please share with your friends & maybe translate if you have time into your local language and pass on. Thanks again. Hanan

http://www.cherrygrrl.com/renaissance-woman-shamim-sarif/

http://www.cherrygrrl.com/lesbian-fiction-perfected-in-%25E2%2580%259Ci-can%25E2%2580%2599t-think-straight/

Bee Movie

2009-07-29T10:21:00.000-07:00

OK, so I am in BIG trouble and about to be kicked out of the house. What happened? Well, last night I was on the bed, finishing yesterday's blog, when a demented bee the size of a cow flew into the room. So, I had just finished criticizing my wife to 1000 Facebook fans, and now I needed her. You don't understand, I am more afraid of insects than of screening I Can't Think Straight in Saudi Arabia. Hanan was still typing when I started screaming, ducking and generally behaving like someone under attack from a street gang. She looked up. She saw the bee. She saw the SIZE of it. And even she flinched. She leapt up, brandishing a Croc in one hand and a newspaper in the other. But this bee was mean and angry. We opened the window, switched off the lights (I say 'we' but it was her while I wept in the corner), but in the dark we couldn't see it zig zagging at head level around us. So I put on the bathroom light and cowered in the corner while my beloved duelled with this flying animal. And then it happened. The bee saw me. It grinned and flexed it's muscles (I swear that's true) and came towards the bathroom light and me. And at the moment of truth, face to face with the enemy, with the chance to prove my heroism - I turned and ran and hid in the bathroom, leaving my wife flailing in the pitch dark with a killer bee. She got it in the end, with lightning reflexes, flipping it outside without killing it, thereby simultaneously stopping my whimpering and yet protecting her good karma. But then Hanan looked at me, with suspicion and horror.
'You left me alone in the pitch dark with a crazy bee,' she said.
'I panicked,' I muttered
'You saved yourself. You'd step on my head if I was drowning, wouldn't you?' she said.
I tried to explain that I would protect her from axe murderers, lunatics and film critics without a moment's hesitation, but when it came to insects, yes I sold her down the river. It was a long night. And I still catch her looking at me narrowly. I failed my wife, cowed by a flying insect. I would make amends by sleeping outside tonight but I am too scared of the moths...

Sleep is for Wimps

2009-07-29T10:19:00.001-07:00

I am writing this at a time when I had hoped to be in bed, doing the thing that seems the most seductive, irresistible and pleasure-inducing. Yes, sleeping. But I am married to a woman who may soon need plastic surgery to have a Macbook removed from her hands. We left London a few days ago, grasping the opportunity to be in fresh air, and a bigger place for the school summer holidays. I don't know if you've ever been cooped up in a hot city apartment with two hyperactive boys, but I think it was banned as a torture option even in Guantanamo. So off we went, and I made my usual plea to Hanan to consider resting a bit - nothing as wild as taking a whole day off, mind you - maybe just stopping work at a normal time, and even reading a book or watching a movie after dinner. Just for a week or so. 'Sure,' she said. 'I was thinking about that myself'. Translated into the English that you and I understand, this actually means 'I was thinking about that and decided I would rather chew off my own head than take two hours off.' We go through the same routine every time we are away. It always ends with me threatening to go back to London (which she treats as the empty threat that it is) and eventually she sits down to watch TV with me. We haven't watched much since Cagney & Lacey used to sort out their problems in the bathroom (no wonder Sharon Gless was always angry, by the way, she was pretending not to be gay!) and TV has gotten a lot faster, more realistic and suspenseful since then. I also spend half the time translating what the cops are mumbling to each other. You know what? I'm going to bring her back her laptop, switch on some Russian pop music (!) and let her get on with it....especially since she is fire-fighting delays to the NTSC DVD shipments of I Can't Think Straight and The World Unseen from our distributor, which (as many of you are asking) really is a genuine manufacturing delay and really can't be helped.Trust me, if it could be done quicker, Hanan would find the way. Wait, I have to go. She's pressing DVDs herself...

2009-07-29T10:15:00.000-07:00

Well, you haven't lived till you have seen The Sound of Music performed by 11 year olds as the end of term school play. My first thoughts were:
1. Thank goodness that Lisa Ray was not 11 years old when I directed her in The World Unseen, and:
2. I'm cured of my girlhood crush on Leisel Von Trapp forever
Moving right along, Hanan is entreating me to spend more time on creative work, while simultaneously emailing me 1000 spreadsheets an hour to look at. Now that I am seriously trying to get into a writing state of mind, she seems more like a whirlwind than ever. I don't know how she does it. Even while she is out of the office at meetings, she texts, emails and psychically transmits ever-longer To Do lists for me and the small army of interns beavering away (don't take that the wrong way) in the office. But I cannot think about marketing and accounts. I am caught in a hazy no-man's land figuring out TV series plot-lines. Having analysed all these TV shows I am horrified, not to say exhausted, by how much happens in each one. I mean, should Tala lose her company, have an affair and go to jail all in the same episode? Can Leyla ditch Tala, join a convent, and escape Nazis before a commercial break?
Anyway, I digress. The point is, I am not doing well on the spreadsheet front and therefore not going to make Employee of the Month any time soon. No, that title is a toss up this month between Aida Kattan, our sari-wearing, LA-based miracle of productivity, and Esperanza, currently our longest-serving intern to date. I like to give any intern who lasts more than 3 months working for Hanan a medal and a small padded room to decompress in, but Esperanza, from Spain, has proven to be up to the job. And what does the Employee of the Month get, I hear you ask? Why, a free pair of I Can't Think Straight panties of course. We may be cheap, but we ain't tacky...

The Dancing Spires

2009-07-29T07:36:00.000-07:00

Occasionally, Hanan does some very odd things, and I don't mean just making us eat middle eastern okra or speaking fluent Japanese. A couple of days ago she got a lead to a Bollywood producer of mass market Indian movies, who swore he could make The Dreaming Spires for less than the special offer pack of I Can't Think Straight and The World Unseen. Off she went to meet him.

HK: 'He thinks we can shoot The Dreaming Spires in 15 days'
SS: 'He read the script?'
HK: 'No, but he said English films are half the length of Bollywood films, so...'
SS: 'Hanan, I can't shoot it in 2 weeks...'
HK: 'He said we would have to cut some of the songs and dancing to cut costs...'
SS: 'Songs? DANCING? Did you tell him it's not Bollywood?'
HK: 'I think you should consider it'
DIAL TONE AS SHAMIM HANGS UP

Postwar Oxford. Our English professor heroine Kate Graves is blinded from secret wartime heroism. And she has to sing 'I Can See Clearly Now' while cavorting by a fountain outside an Oxford college. Will you all excuse me? I have to go lie down.

It's a Fair Cop, Guv...

2009-07-29T07:33:00.000-07:00

Just back from New Scotland Yard (Metropolitan Police HQ), where we were invited to be on a panel about LGBT hate crimes. Hanan agreed to this without consulting me, yet I got to sit up in front of 100 police personnel. That's a hate crime right there. Anyway, I learned many things by the end of this session:
1. Most policewomen do not look like Charlie's Angels
2. Domestic violence against lesbians includes mental abuse and frankly, I will be watching Hanan closely from now on
3. Bar charts and pie charts (even in colour) are no match for the trailer of I Can't Think Straight for getting people's attention.
What can I do with this new-found knowledge, apart from be more vigilant about people making sarcastic comments about my flat shoes? We all agreed by the end that education is the key. I can be flippant about it here, but of course these crimes are too common and too real for many people. I hope that by getting emotionally involved with characters like Amina and Miriam, or Tala and Leyla, people realise that sexuality, colour and gender are the last things we should judge people on. It is, of course, perfectly acceptable to judge people if they voted for George W Bush or listen to Russian pop stars (except Beyonce). I am joking of course (sort of) but I felt a renewed energy to begin I Can't Think Straight 2, where Tala becomes a policewoman, handcuffs Reema and Kareem together, brings them to justice, then takes her handcuffs back home where Leyla is waiting with a pie chart showing how many people thought Lesbian food involved hummus and tabouleh...

Moose Hunting

2009-06-10T01:43:00.001-07:00

Why no blog, I hear you all ask (OK, 2 of you asked, and thank you). Because this week, after my wife jetted off to Calgary, I am a single, working mother. Frankly, it's not working for me. Having spent the best part of my adult life secretly believing that I did most of the work around here, I find myself drowning in a fraction of what Hanan manages to do. This includes almost anything to do with interacting with other people. So I have no idea what to do with our office interns. Luckily, Hanan has left them enough work to see them through to retirement, and they are diligent enough to get on with it, so I can go back to the school run - a big highlight for me, which starts with me standing, talking to myself on the street while I try to remember where I parked the car. Then, teeth gritted, I duel with other mothers for a parking spot and then realise I have forgotten to bring the kids their snacks. 'Mama never forgets our snacks,' the little one tells me. I buy him something with chocolate in it so he can't say anything else. Then home and a call from Hanan, up early to tap maple syrup from trees or whatever else she could possibly be doing in Canada at the Banff TV market.
'Good news, the broadcaster loves it. Needs a script'
'OK, I'll work on it this summer.'
'No they need it now. I told her you were putting the finishing touches on it.'
Resistant silence from Shamim.
'What, are you busy this week? Oh, and you need to apply for citizenship.'
So that's why I haven't blogged. I have been writing a TV script and becoming Canadian. I don't think Hanan and Aida are having meetings at all. I think they're out hunting moose. Or eating pancakes.

The Hills Are Alive...

2009-04-17T13:34:00.001-07:00

I had a Swiss day. No, not running through the alps with a cuckoo clock, but visiting the Aqua Park with our children. Forget the alps, the lake, the fresh air. You haven't lived till you've been enclosed in 8,000 square feet of plastic with 1000 Swiss teenagers, climbing 300 stairs at a time while carrying an inflatable boat the size of Texas. That little sojourn took around 4 hours, during which my worst Howard Hughes-type phobias about personal hygiene, re-used water, and overheated, bacteria-filled atmospheres were confirmed...I tried to focus on the excitement on my boys' faces, until the little one's crumpled in fear as we prepared to descend the black water slide. I had just walked up 789 stairs carrying a boat that could have been a relic from the Titanic, and I was not about to walk back down so I convinced him it was a safe and fun ride down. As my karmic punishment for lying to my own child, I was invited to dinner at our Swiss neighbour's house, which was not that bad except that I am anti-social at the best of times, and especially around people who only speak French, unless they look like Emmanuelle Beart. We ate raclette, which is melted Swiss cheese, very delicious and enough to fuel a hike up a Swiss mountain, or indeed a water slide. Luckily, my wife is fluent in French, so I was able to sit and watch her admiringly...

Leonie Hits the Radio!

2009-04-06T11:25:00.001-07:00

I am more excited than these two. We just found out that Leonie Casanova's single 'Broken' which we just released under Enlightenment Records, is getting it's first radio play on Terry Wogan's show tomorrow morning (Tues April 7th) at around 8.45 am. This is the biggest radio show in the UK, but much more importantly, it brings back memories of driving to work at my dad's office for so many years, listening to it in the car. If only they had played Leonie Casanova then! Of course, she would have been five years old, but still...I digress.

Please listen out for it and let me know what you think. You can link to live streaming of the show at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/ and the single is on itunes if you want to check it out.

Am in Switzerland now with Hanan and the boys, which means Easter holidays for them, and working with better scenery for us. The hills are alive and I expect Julie Andrews to come running over the mountain any time now. I must go and prepare.

Taming the Lion

2009-03-31T06:43:00.000-07:00

A lot of you have heard me talking about the brilliant singer-songwriter Leonie Casanova, but you may wonder how we actually met her, and how it happened that for her alone we set up Enlightenment Records. If you are not wondering about this, then stop reading now and go and watch her music videos on this page. If you're not wondering after that, we'll call it a day. Everyone else can read my new screenplay below of how we met the Lioness as she is known to those who truly know her..

FADE IN. THREE YEARS EARLIER. NIGHT Hanan and Shamim are at home. Hanan is working on her computer, while Shamim is whining about being tired. The phone RINGS for the 4th time in 10 minutes. Shamim picks up.
SHAMIM: Alma, we are not coming out with you tonight. I'm tired.
ALMA: You can't miss this. It's a group of famous film people and one of the actor's girlfriend is singing.
SHAMIM: It's 9.30. Who goes out at 9.30?
ALMA: Everyone except my grandmother. Are you 80?

Stung by this, and faced with 2 more hours of work, Shamim caves in and goes to Notting Hill with Hanan.

INTERIOR. COOL CLUB. NIGHT
In the dim lighting, Shamim makes ends up sitting with a couple of actors and weeps from self-pitying exhaustion into her £20 drink. The MC introduces the singer.

SHAMIM: Leonie Casanova? What kind of name is that?

The singer walks on stage. She looks like a goddess. Casanova is clearly her real name. She opens her mouth to sing. Shamim stops weeping and stares, amazed by the beautiful song that is being woven out over the audience. When the set is finished, Shamim is humbled and vows never to whine again (a promise she will break within 24 hours). Leonie walks off stage, to be accosted by Hanan.

HANAN: Hi Leonie. You were amazing. We are making a film called The World Unseen and we'd like you to write a song for it.
LEONIE: When are you shooting?
SHAMIM (to herself): No idea.
HANAN: Soon
LEONIE: What's the budget
SHAMIM (to herself): No idea
HANAN: Small
LEONIE: I'd love to, I just need to pop to the ladies room
HANAN: Not till you sign here.

And the rest is history. Seriously, Leonie has a rare combination of accessible melodies and poetic lyrics that could make Leonard Cohen weep. And her single Broken (remixed from The World Unseen) is now on Itunes. Check it out, and spread the word.

Now I know how Beyonce feels (OK maybe not Beyonce...)

2009-03-30T13:06:00.001-07:00

Friday night was officially our BSE, and that has nothing to do with mad cows or any other disease, it stands for Best Screening Ever. To those of you who were in the audience, thank you for screaming and clapping as I came out to introduce the film. Of course, the fact that my truly rock star-like wife was behind me may have induced the applause, or maybe it was Nina Wadia of Eastenders fame, who was behind her, who caused the screaming. But I like to think it was me. And please don't write in to tell me otherwise, OK?!

Seriously, though, there was a lot of good will in that packed cinema, and the audience (obviously 450 people of incredibly good taste not to mention a keen sense of irony) laughed from the time the credits rolled to the time the movie ended. And in the right places. It was tremendous to feel such a strong interaction from the audience and it's moments like that that really do make it all worthwhile.

We did a Q&A and then a book signing, and then had a drinks reception. By the time the first sip of white wine hit my stomach, I hadn't eaten in 9 hours (for someone who spends each meal planning the next, that's scary) because the earlier part of the day had been spent doing radio and press interviews. I resisted the urge to whine and pass out, and ended up meeting some wonderful people and finally got home very late to collapse. Our house looked as if it had been raided by Sudanese rebels, which gave us a clue that our children had not behaved at their best while we were out...but we were still on a high, though as I lay there on the bed, telling Hanan that I was too excited to even close my eyes, I am embarrassed to say I fell asleep before I finished the sentence...I bet real rock stars can stay awake past 11pm, right?

2009-03-24T09:25:00.000-07:00

So the Manchester screening was a huge success, and afterwards, we were guided by Rod Priestley (aka Sargeant Stewart) to one of Manchester’s coolest clubs for a drinks reception and a fantastic live performance from Leonie Casanova. I have to confess that the last time I was in a club was about 15 years ago, pre-Hanan, and with my sister and her friends, when I drove them crazy the next morning by waking up ready for breakfast at 7.30 am. But I digress. Back to Manchester where we staggered to bed in the early hours after a fabulous dinner and yes, at 7.30 am I did knock on my sister's door and drag her down to breakfast...Next up – the London LGFF screening on Friday, features in the Evening Standard this week and the Guardian on Friday. But before that, the afternoon and evening beckons and I will be doing homework with the six year old (which I can keep up with) and the ten year old (forget it, I don’t think I studied that level of maths in sixth form) and then finishing the screenplay for The Dreaming Spires. Have a good evening, and I’ll be back tomorrow.

Black Tie & Jeans

2009-03-18T16:00:00.000-07:00

Tired of going to the movies in jeans? Bored with wiping salt from your popcorn on your old T-shirt? No, me neither. However, I am going to have to dress up for the 5th of May. What is it, you ask? The award for the lesbian who eats the most and blogs the least? My mother's birthday? No, better than that, it is a charity screening of a wonderful movie called The World Unseen, in aid of the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund. At BAFTA in Piccadilly, London. And if I have to swap my jeans and shirt for 'black tie' attire (can I possibly recycle the SAFTA dress one more time?!) then I think some of you should join me. Tickets are £50, but all for a great cause, and you get a wonderful movie (did I already mention that?), Q&A, book signing, performance from the stunningly talented Leonie Casanova, raffles, drinks, canapes and goody bags. So if you are in London, and you can make it, come and join us there. Tickets from info@enlightenment-product

ions.com. I would write more but I have a cold and am sniffling over my keyboard with just a bit of self-pity, hoping my producer will suggest that I call it a night and get to bed. Or, even better, offer to rub Vicks on my chest......Ok, neither of those is happening. I am sneaking out of the room against the wall before she notices I am go..

Upcoming Screenings

2009-03-13T14:33:00.000-07:00

So in the whirlwind of work and children and life, special screenings rise up out of my calendar like oases in the desert, mostly because it's a break from our normal routine, except that we don't actually have a normal routine...Next Saturday 21st March, I should be on a train to Manchester for a charity screening of The World Unseen arranged by the irrepressible Rod Priestley (Sargeant Stewart in the movie) who was, of course, robbed of his Best Supporting Actor Oscar this year but has been incredibly gracious about that. That trip involves a train journey in the company of 1) Hanan (so I should take my laptop and work like mad) 2) Exec Producer and dear friend Katherine (so I should take the laptop but catch up with her) 3) My sister Anouchka (so I should forget work, kick back and complain about our parents 4) her new boyfriend (so I should definitely close the laptop and scrutinise him to make sure he's good enough) and 5) Leonie Casanova (so I should ditch all the above and just beg her to sing to us the entire way there). Anyway, you get the gist. It'll be fun, it will, I am sure, be inspirational thanks to the amazing charity it supports (http://www.justgiving.com/thebuckers).

2009-03-06T11:10:00.000-08:00

Ah, marketing! I am not a natural at it, but I am learning to love it, because it doesn't matter how much Hanan, Aida and I enjoy our own films, if no-one else buys them, we can't make any more of them.

Hanan, luckily, has been considering DVD extras (none of which seemed possible on our budget) since before we started shooting, so we now have great Making of videos as well as a music video featuring the gifted Leonie Casanova, one from each film, and a Making of the music video.

Then we have a gallery of stills and behind-the-scenes photos. For The World Unseen, we have deleted scenes, and outtakes. If you wondered if Sheetal was really able to drive that 1950s truck so easily, check those out. On I Can't Think Straight, by an amazing coincidence a few months ago, we got back the DV Cam tapes of footage of Tala and Leyla in the park that we were going to use as the last montage ending of the film, and you can see that alternative ending on the DVD extras.

There are French and Spanish subtitles, trailers, interviews etc but best of all, obviously, is the director's commentary. Yes, as if reading these blogs was not enough, you can now switch on the commentary and hear me talk for an hour an a half about the movie. Will I spill the beans about the love scenes? Will you find out how it was working with the various actors? I, for one, can hardly wait to find out :) (I hope you all read these notes with a strong sense of irony by the way...)

DVDs now on www.icantthinkstraightfilm

.com and www.theworldunseenfilm.com

Around the World in 80 Days

2009-02-23T12:37:00.001-08:00

OK, so I decided I don't want to bore you with every detail of my daily life plus, after I've lived through a manic day juggling marketing, interviews, writing, business plans and children, the last thing I want to do is condense it into bite-sized form for this sort-of blog.

So I am posting a series of somewhat surreal photos from my recent travels. I think I have been in 15 cities in the past 15 months, and some of them many times (Mumbai being the setting for my personal Groundhog Day)...so here we go, first one being from New York, at the Fox News studios, where you can see I was in some very exalted company...whoever said that politicians are flat and one-dimensional?!

Why you should watch Leonie Casanova's new music videos

2009-02-23T12:32:00.000-08:00

Check out the videos on YouTube for Leonie's new singles, which will blast onto the UK scene end of March. Leonie has the musical talent of Beethoven (if he had ever written contemporary ballads), the lyric brilliance of Leonard Cohen, the voice of an angel and the looks of a supermodel. Despite all that, I can't help but like her, and I am thrilled that Enlightenment Records is releasing her first two singles (Broken and LIttle Feeling) at the end of March.

The woman is a modern maestro. She deserves a statue somewhere. Somewhere nice. Enjoy.

Drama, drama, drama!

2009-02-11T07:59:00.001-08:00

So after the acclaim comes the drama! A popular TV show here in South Africa called Top Billing asked me to do their show, and then cancelled at the 11th hour because of the content of The World Unseen (ie the central relationship between Amina and Miriam).

This stance was leaked to the gay and lesbian groups here, and they have already provoked a response from Top Billing, which was that the show is a ‘family show’ about ‘family values’ and The World Unseen, while a great story, would be better suited to an ‘adult-only’ programme.

I’ve been asked for a reply, and considered whether or not to address this, but felt this issue is at the core of what The World Unseen is about, so have sent the following quote via our publicist here.

‘I was disappointed that the slot on The World Unseen was cancelled by Top Billing. While I am aware that any TV show is a business that has to cater to its audience, I would ask all companies with influence on the media in South Africa to keep in mind that they hold a powerful position and have the opportunity to encourage openness and dialogue by perhaps pushing the envelope a little now and then. The World Unseen is very much about challenging convention, about daring to think a little differently, about optimism and the capacity for change. It would be wonderful to feel that my characters are judged according to their core human values and their actions, rather than innate characteristics such as colour or sexuality. The character of Amina in The World Unseen is a dynamic, charismatic, intelligent woman who happens to be gay. Her values are in no way in conflict with ‘family values’ in the sense that she has great integrity, honour and kindness.’

Let me know what your views are...

The Sun Always Shines on TV

2009-02-11T07:02:00.000-08:00

Day two in sunny Cape Town, and a round of interviews. Now that we have won 11 SAFTA awards (yes, after 10 nominations - not everyone can manage it) lots of TV stations here want to interview me. I know in my head this is good for the movie, but I can’t help feeling I have a better face for radio. However, I gamely hold in my stomach and try and sound intelligent while trying not to direct the cameraman. Then off to another radio interview with Natalie Becker (Farah in the movie). This all gets a bit out of control, but in a good way, as Natalie is on good form, and she then jumps onto her pink moped (see photo below, I really don’t make this stuff up) to join me at the Cape Town premiere.

After all that hard work (!) it was time for a celebratory drink with Natalie, Shaz Van Zanten (who looked after us so well during our year living in Cape Town) and the team. Back in Johannesburg tonight, and off to bed as I am up in 4 hours to go on breakfast TV. If the sight of me on 4 hours sleep doesn’t encourage people to wake up to their radios instead, I don’t know what will...

And the SAFTA goes to...

2009-02-11T06:54:00.000-08:00

SAFTA night in Pretoria, South Africa, and my first challenge was getting in and out of a car while wearing a long black dress and (sort of) heels while being broadcast on live television. Are there schools for this? Or an evening course?! The nominees were put into a series of Mercedes and then driven around to the front of the theatre where - wait for it - people screamed as Hanan and I got out of the car onto the red carpet. Had they noticed a ladder in my tights? Did my make-up free face scare them?! No, they screamed for everyone, it turned out. We were accosted by an excitable TV interviewer. 'Don't worry,' Hanan had told me in the car. 'Just talk about the film.' I had this in mind when her first question came. 'Who designed that dress?' I had no idea. I only know I've worn it to the last 5 black tie things I've had to go to...I thought things could only improve with the next question and smiled bravely. 'Ladies, you look so stunning, where are your men?' Oh dear.

But it was a great night, and I was so happy Hanan was there. we swept the awards, winning at least 8 and possibly 10 (once the editing and sound are confirmed). David Dennis (Jacob), Grethe Fox (Madeleine) and Natalie Becker (Farah) were there from the cast, and I was so happy that production design, costume design and cinematography won too. Very well deserved. We staggered home (heels in hands) around 1am. A memorable way to celebrate our 13th anniversary.

Hola Bilbao!

2009-02-02T03:44:00.001-08:00

So we landed Sunday evening in a grey, rainy Bilbao. Off to the screening of The World Unseen, which was sold out. The audience clapped and whistled at the end (I think because they liked it, not because it had ended!) and we had a great Q&A. It was also great to see the film with subtitles. 'Buenos dias, Amina!' 'Ola, Sargento Stewart!'. And I had mentioned how sorry I was that the Guggenheim Museum was closed on Monday. Straight after the Q&A one of the audience members came and told us they had arranged for a friend of theirs, a restorer at the Guggenheim, to give us a private tour Monday morning! We were overwhelmed by the generosity, and even more overwhelmed by the museum. Truly stunning, and there was a Cy Twombly exhibition that was breathtaking and one I'll remember always. So a once-in-a-lifetime morning, especially when combined with the equally unusual sight of Hanan eating a tortilla and ham sandwich for breakfast instead of fruit and orange juice. When in Rome...

2009-01-28T14:53:00.001-08:00

Spent the day in Soho. No, not raising money in dubious ways for the next film project, but finishing online editing work on the Leonie Casanova music videos for the singles 'Broken' and 'Little Feeling' which are released at the end of March. Online editing involves a) drinking a lot of coffee b) avoiding the plates of biscuits lying around c) making sure the slow motion/effects are correctly placed and adding to them if need be d) colour correcting each shot e) spending way too many hours in a small, dark room... I could go on, but I can sense you are falling asleep already...The videos have different editors and very different styles, but I was very happy with the way both of them turned out. I hope you'll take the time to watch them in a few weeks when they begin to get released onto the internet and onto TV here in the UK.

What I read

2009-01-19T03:14:00.001-08:00

People often ask me what I like to read. I should say that what I like to read and what I usually end up reading are two different things. Has anyone tried reading the notes from the film council on filling in an application? That's an hour of your life you'll never get back. And then the children usually come home bearing reams of paper, advising us that there's a football match tomorrow ('Mummy, I need shin pads?' 'not if you run away from the ball') or that there's a play this week ('Mummy I need a 1960's top', 'I don't think people wore tops in the 60s sweetheart') or that someone in school has head lice. A far cry from the romance and sweeping drama of literature. By the end of the day I usually collapse into bed and enjoy just looking at the cover of the book I am intending to read (currently Ronald Harwood on screenplay adaptations). As for online reading...well, I have no time, it would have to be brilliantly written, and laugh-out-loud funny would help too. One daily blog makes the cut. www.peachesandcoconuts.com I declare an interest. Deborah Goldstein is an old (but incredibly well-preserved) friend of mine and Hanan's. The woman can write. Check it out and let me know what you think. When you've finished this...

Avoiding Facebook

2009-01-09T02:23:00.000-08:00

So I have successfully avoided Facebook up until now. Why? I can give you the philosophical/social theory, but mostly it’s because I am OLD in cyber terms, and could never get my head around posting my photos and life on a virtual wall for people to see. Now you all think I’m 80. I’m not. I’m middle-aged though (I’m 39, and that’s sort of ‘middle’ aged, unless I plan to live to 150. And you never know). Anyway, here I am with a Facebook fan page. And happy to be here. I get a lot of emails every day now from people who have read my books or seen the movies (or at least the trailers!) and are inspired and excited and kind enough to take the time and tell me how they feel about them. So though I try to answer most emails personally, I realized it might not be a bad idea to have one place which I can update with news and new books/movies/videos. I hope you enjoy it. I will add more things whenever I can, and please let me know what kind of thing you’d like to see.

Shamim Sarif

2008-12-18T09:01:00.000-08:00

Woke up this morning to find an email from my aunt announcing that I was afterellen’s Lesbian of the Year. It was a great moment, and I enjoyed it for a full thirty seconds before wondering how my aunt, a lovely woman who is fond of trying to convince us to make our children Catholics, was so up on queer of the year news…Seriously, it was wonderful just to be nominated on afterellen, that site has been very supportive of our work, and I want to say thank you to everyone who took the time to vote for me (and to vote at all, really!) We leave for Amsterdam tomorrow where both ‘The World Unseen’ and ‘I Can’t Think Straight’ are showing at the Gay and Lesbian Festival. Have not been there since I was a teenager (three years ago, and if you believe that, you’ll believe that George Bush is a flaming liberal). Looking forward to it, and then will be back to spend Christmas in London with the boys and my parents and sister Anouchka. Have negotiated Christmas day off (since I am cooking) with my producer, and working on a rehabilitation program to reintroduce her to the concept of being just my wife over the holidays…