It is not every day that the issue of incorrect attitudes towards teaching Islam is addressed, let alone in the form of a short film — we have to admit, short films aren’t exactly mainstream. So when we heard of the fuss around El Film Da Haram (This Movie is Sinful), we simply had to meet the brains behind it.

Coming to meet the filmmakers at the production house Axeer Studio, I was taken by surprise when two young veiled women introduced themselves as the creators of the film. Ok, I’m going to blurt it out: I was not expecting to find the creators of such an avant-garde film to be young, religious and veiled.

Meet the Filmmakers

El Film Da Haram is the brainchild of scriptwriter and director Sarah Riad and director and producer Yara Ayyach. Ayyach, 19, is currently in her second year at the German University in Cairo (GUC), majoring in Applied Arts. “This is the first of my films to be released on YouTube. The rest of the films I’ve done were part of my work at the university,” explains Ayyach.

Riad, a 21-year-old freelance scriptwriter and director, had a little less conventional educational background. After three years of studying media in Japan, she decided to move back to the motherland and enroll at Misr International University (MIU) in the mass communications department. During her first semester at MIU, Riad chose to drop out of university and pursue her true passion of becoming a full-time filmmaker.

“I decided to drop out of university and focus solely on scriptwriting and directing,” says Riad. “There aren’t any good filmmaking schools here, and I didn’t want to travel abroad again. After all, if I want to make it here as a filmmaker, I have to remain here and be a part of the culture or of what is happening in the country.”

Riad and Ayyach first met while interning at Jodran Studio. Having common interests and ideologies, the aspiring filmmakers became fast friends with a plan to co-direct a short film.

This ambitious plan conveniently coincided with the launch of the film defaming the prophet Mohamed on YouTube. To counterattack the effect of the film, the filmmakers joined forces with rapper Khaled Abdelazeem and Ahmad Gamal of Jodran Studio to create a film, targeting the West, in an attempt to alter the image of the western world has of Islam. The fruit of a series of several brainstorming sessions was a new concept for a new target audience.

The foursome concluded that the only way to rectify the misconceptions the West has of Islam was by fixing the root of the problem, which according to Ayyach lies within the Muslim world.  “We, Muslims, defame the prophet on a regular basis because we don’t really know our own religion,” says Ayyach.

Hence the decision to create a series of short films to reflect on the image Muslims themselves project about religion.

“We decided that our first [movie] will be dedicated to highlighting misunderstandings and misconceptions [Muslims have] regarding Islam,” says Riad. Shortly after, Abdel Azeem and Gamal left the project and it became up to the girls to turn this idea into a reality. “This is when we first started seeking help from Garawany [co-founder and CEO of Axeer Studio] on a non-professional basis,” explains Riad.

Standing up to society

Breaking into the world of filmmaking is no walk in the park, especially if you are a female director. “My father was completely against my dropping out of university and becoming a director. It is only recently that he started to show his approval of my chosen profession,” reveals Riad. Ayyach too confirms the difficulty any female director faces when venturing into this profession, namely from her parents. “If there is something I want to do, I will do it in my way by my own rules,” says Ayyach.

However, the going gets a little rougher when two young, veiled women are tackling an issue as sensitive as religion, especially if they’re critiquing society’s views of it.

Despite some concerns and objection from family and friends about launching the film, Ayyach and Riad were convinced that this was in fact the ideal time for such a film. “We believe that one of our main problems nowadays is that anybody and everybody has something to say about religion,” both of them concurred. “People don’t really know what Islam is.”

Regardless of some of the accusations the film has sparked among its viewers, namely that it was created to deviate people away from Islam, the filmmakers vehemently disagree. “We are not trying to push people away from religion, quite the contrary, we want people to want to know more about their religion; to understand it,” says Ayyach. Riad elaborates, “it is true that we have to revere god, but we also have to love him. And not everything related to religion should be about fear and punishment.”

Despite their confessions, the filmmakers assert their commitment to realizing their dreams. Riad aspires to become a famous feature filmmaker, while Ayyach hopes to become a successful stop-motion videos [an animation technique used to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own] and short film director. Good luck Girls.