Two Pictures a Day in Amman, last page in the daily journal from the set of "3000 Nights" By Gilles Porte, AFC
When Hélène Louvart, AFC, called me in mid-April to ask whether I was free in June and July to fill in for her in Jordan on a film that she wasn’t able to work on, I admitted to her that I knew nothing about that country, despite the fact that I am not a total stranger to filming in Arab countries***.
After reading the screenplay and a few long discussions with Mai Masri, the director, as well as the various producers — Philistine Films (Jordan), Nour Productions (Lebanon), and Les Films d’Ici (France) —, I was engaged (I think I could also say “I engaged myself…”) to work on the film 3000 Nights with permission to bring Samuel Lahu along with the rest of my luggage…
Samuel is my assistant, and a bit more, too… He has already been with me to 25 different countries…
As soon as he arrived in Amman on 27 May, Samuel and I decided to each take a photo per day until we got back to Paris.
We would each use a different camera: a 35mm for Samuel and a 50mm for me!
We would always include a few comments with each photo…
We decided we would be allowed to crop the images, choose between a horizontal or vertical format, colour or black-and-white, and to change the lens from time to time: our photo of the day could also be taken with our iPhones (that we would always have with us) or be a photogram from the film, which is being shot with a Sony F55 and Zeis Compact Prime lenses…
Gilles Porte, AFC
*** Two films in Tunisia, one in Egypt, and another in Morocco.
(Translated from French by Alex Raiffe)
Synopsis of 3000 Nights
Layal, a newlywed Palestinian schoolteacher, is arrested and incarcerated in a top-security Israeli prison where she gives birth to a baby boy. Torn between her instinct as a mother and the difficult decisions she must make, she struggles to survive and raise her child behind bars, finding through her relationship with the other prisoners the time and space to reflect, develop and mature as a young woman.1
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