For local director, filmmaker, script writer and producer Abdullah Al- Wazzan, breaking barriers is simply not enough. The architect turned filmmaker aspires to dominate the industry, setting new standards for creative output not only in Kuwait, but also the entire region.

His work is gaining worldwide recognition with every passing day, with the heart-pulling animated short film Falafel Cart (2019) continuing to merit new interest. The film was submitted and qualified for the best animated short film category at the 2020 Academy Awards, won the best international short animated film at the Los Angeles Animation Festival 2019, nominated at the D.C. Independent Film Festival, and at the Palm Springs International Animation Festival, and officially selected at both the Sonoma International Film and Montreal International Animation Film Festivals.

Most recently, Falafel Cart has been making waves at the prestigiously world-renowned Hiroshima International Animation Festival. Biennial in nature, creative submissions number in the thousands, and for a Kuwaiti submission to make it this far, we deeply believe that this is a feat worth celebrating. Abdullah also tells us that Falafel Cart will be showing in different parts of Asia and Europe in the upcoming period.

This filmmaker however has his goals set pretty high, and laughingly tells us “I’m not satisfied.” He simply doesn’t want to be amongst a select roster of Middle Eastern talent making temporary waves abroad. Instead, he wants to constantly produce great work that garners a continuous record, contrasting creative output from the Middle East with that of the West, “We see American, European and Mexican filmmakers winning year after year, simply because their efforts are ongoing, they have more experience with the industry and they constantly create.”

Competing and creating work at this level takes a serious amount of commitment, and this is specifically what Abdullah set out to do when he established motion picture and animation company RoyalTales in 2016. But Abdullah’s passion for filmmaking goes way back in time.

“I have been a filmmaker since I was 6-years-old,” he says, “I used to make so many home movies and I loved watching films. Back then, I knew I wanted to be a filmmaker when I grew up. And then boom. I had to go to architecture school because there’s no filmmaking school in Kuwait and I didn’t want to go abroad. So, I had to study architecture and then I made the switch again to the filmmaker [I am] now, seriously, this time.” He graduated in 2012, and he hasn’t looked back since.

It takes a lot of raw talent to stand out from the crowd in any given field, but for Abdullah, the journey is also all about perseverance, a theme that is highly prominent in his work. With the conception of RoyalTales, Abdullah shines a light on stories from the Arab world that are rife with loss, and he takes an honest look on not only the physical turmoil of wars which plague the region, but also the emotional toll on people brought on by years of war and unrest.

He shares with us how, “It’s frustrating to see the Arab world being constantly on fire. Whether it’s Syria, Palestine, Yemen, Iraq, and now Lebanon. Refugees get stuck in the middle of these wars, and if we can’t change or stop wars by ourselves, we can spread the message to stop them. In a way, we can steam off our frustrations.”

Abdullah could have easily broached more accessible, or dare we say, happier, stories to share with his audiences, yet he chooses to look at the hard and ugly. He explains that “this varies for each filmmaker, and I understand life through film. Some people want to escape life, want to see a film to laugh. For me, filmmaking is an outlet to express. You can’t escape life all the time. I make films to understand life and its challenges, to feel and to heal.”

Brave, beautiful and soulful, Falafel Cart follows the footsteps of a refugee who has survived the losses of war to start a new life in greener pastures abroad, and what is most telling is how the film cleverly asks the viewer to question whether life away from war, and essentially one’s home, is better or worse.

We seldom survive life changing events without a loss of sorts, and while we’re used to seeing the physical destruction of war on news and social media outlets, we don’t often discuss the following emotional aftershock. We see death tolls, but we don’t think of what these numbers mean to those who survived. Abdullah spent years on this project, animating and designing Falafel Cart from start to end.

Abdullah’s upcoming short live-action film Soaring over Mayhem builds on the theme of war, as it follows the lives of two brothers who struggle to survive as they grow up in war-torn Syria. He counts himself quite lucky, as this drama thriller is one of five short films to receive its annual grant from the Doha Film Institute at a time when uncertainty brought on by the current pandemic simply adds to an already shrinking pool of resources for filmmakers.

And while he is fully set on fully supporting himself and self-funding his filmmaking journey, he is disheartened by the fact that Kuwait doesn’t offer more support for feature films and hopes to see this change. He says, “We definitely have an amazing audience and lots of raw talent too, but I feel that this talent dissipates when the creative infrastructure to nurture it is lacking. When you consider this on top of the economic recession pre-COVID, it’s going to be a tough road ahead for filmmakers in particular.”

He repeatedly shares with us how he is determined to make it on his own, and he works with a wide international network of professionals who possess the tools, resources and knowledge to get the job done right, and to deliver the vision he has in mind for his work. He is currently concentrating his creative efforts on one short animation, and two feature films. Considered as a personal life-long dream feature film, Abdullah won’t reveal much to us about this project, but he does tell us that it’s been nine years in development, with thousands of sketches that he created and printed materials to make this dream come to life. We can’t wait to see what he does next!

UP CLOSE & PERSONAL QUESTIONNAIRE

What do you most value about your friends?

That I see them show up in the best of times and the worst.

Which living person do you most admire?

Several people actually tie for this but if I have to narrow it down then it would be Steven Spielberg and Alejandro Iñárritu.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

To reach my potential as a human being. To affect people’s lives positively. To be with my family.

What is your greatest extravagance?

I am guilty of collecting rare 80’s and 90’s film memorabilia.

What is your most treasured possession?

Many things bring me joy but I am never attached to materialistic things. So none.

What is your greatest fear?

To not carry out the things I said I would do.

What is your most marked characteristic?

Obsession over details.

Which talent would you most like to have?

To be calm all the time even when things are going wrong.

What is one trait you have that you are most grateful for?

My visual storytelling ability which comes intuitively to me.

What is the human trait you most dislike about others?

If you look for the bad in others you will find it and some more, so I don’t like to focus on people’s faults and I just focus on my objectives.

What is it that you most dislike?

Wars. Man’s greed. Corruption.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

I will.

What are your favorite words to live by?

That life can’t be controlled so I should just do my best and enjoy it.

Where would you most like to live?

California, USA

If you could have any job, what would it be?

What I am doing right now writing, directing but with bigger budgets to tell my stories in a bigger scope.

What would you consider your greatest achievement?

Falafel Cart is considered my greatest achievement so far given that it spanned 3 years. With thousands of hours put in and single-handedly animated and designed by me. So I am glad I didn’t stop. But this will change as I move to the next project and the next.

What do you hope for the future?

To have a big impact on the world. To live a good life with my family.

You can watch Falafel Cart on Vimeo on Demand and Amazon Prime. For more information on RoyalTales, please visit www.RoyalTales.com. To keep up with Abdullah’s latest, follow him on Instagram @AbdullahsAlWazzan.