The Jacket © Mirage
Matthijs Poppe’s The Jacket, which producer Elisa Heene of Dérives is confident of delivery in early 2023, follows the 50-year-old Palestinian Jamal who lives with his family in the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut, where he makes political theatre. It is Poppe’s second film made in collaboration with his main character, following on from the short Ours is a Country of Words (2017).
The synopsis tells how, together with a group of friends, Jamal is working on a play that tells the story of an old jacket that symbolises the Palestinian identity. But the evening before the play opens, he loses this essential theatre prop. As Jamal embarks on a night-time journey through the streets of Beirut, he is confronted by a city in radical transition. “The successive crises and protests he sees leave deep scars,” the synopsis ends.
“I got to know Jamal about 10 years ago when I first visited Shatila,” feature debutant Poppe explained during his public pitch in Antwerp. “At the time I had started studying filmmaking and I had brought my camera with me, and I filmed a lot in the camp and with Jamal at home. But when I came back to Belgium, I realized that the images that I had made only made sense in a world that sees Palestinians, or Palestinian refugees, as victims. And I, I wondered about how I could work together with Jamal in a way that would enable him to tell his own story.”
“So, years after, we started to develop a kind of hybrid filmmaking that uses both documentary and fiction,” Poppe continues. “Because by using fictional set-ups, it became possible to share the production process with Jamal, and to make films about his life, together.”
“The fictional tale is merely a structural backbone that allows us to pursue documentary purposes and show Jamal’s reality in Lebanon and explore the broader topic of living in exile,” he adds.
Co-produced by Fulgurance (France) and Family Affair Films (The Netherlands), the project has support from CNC and The Netherlands Film Fund, as well as VAF. Eighty per cent of the €341,500 budget is raised. Main shooting (in Beirut and Lebanon) is complete, and now editing is under way.
Producer Elisa Heene is planning a 90-minute version for festivals and theatrical release and a 52-minute version for television, and is looking for sales representation as well as wider distribution deals.
