Palestinian director Rakan Mayasi is in Cannes with his first feature “Yesterday the Eye Didn’t Sleep,” about two Bedouin sisters named Rim and Jahawer contending with patriarchal rituals in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.
Shot without a script and with a cast of non-professionals, Mayasi’s feature debut – that premiered in Un Certain Regard – comes after the director, who studied with Abbas Kiarostami and Béla Tarr, made a splash with several shorts. Most notably “Bonboné” that depicted the phenomenon of Palestinian sperm smuggling from Israeli jails and bowed in 2017 in Toronto.
Mayasi’s observational feature, praised by Variety critic Tomris Laffly as “powerful and atmospheric” starts with a truck that has been set on fire by a young woman who has gone missing. An incident which, in turn, ends up sparking trouble for Rim and Jahwer.
Variety speaks to Mayasi about the fly on the wall process he used to make “Eye Didn’t Sleep” as Israeli jets on occasion bombed the Bekaa Valley. An experience he describes as both “an act of existence” and “resistance.”
As I understand it, the inspiration for this is film came from your grandmother. Am I right?
