50 Meters is Yomna Khattab’s debut feature documentary. It discusses many topics, from aging, motherhood, and morality in our societies, to the struggles of a filmmaker’s journey. The film explores the complexities behind every father-daughter relationship. The film premiered first at CPH:DOX, where it was very well received. We can’t wait for its screening here in Egypt.
50 Meters
50 Meters is Yomna Khattab’s debut feature documentary. It’s an Egypt-Denmark-Saudi co-production. The film’s world premiere at the Copenhagen International Documentary Festival (CPH:DOX). The film is produced by Ahmed Amir for A.A Films and Patricia Drati for Good Company Pictures.
Yomna Khattab is a scriptwriter, director, and producer based in Cairo, Egypt. She wrote the short story collection, Videotape from the Nineties. She won Best Script From a Young Scriptwriter for her feature film script, Rokaya. Moreover, she wrote and produced the film Let Us Play Yesterday. 50 Meters is Yomna Khattab’s first feature documentary that she wrote and directed. She says,
“I made the film for my family, friends, and colleagues, and I am eager to share my questions with them through my film.”
The Documentary
The film follows Yomna as she figures out her first-time filmmaking journey, struggles, and process. It’s set against the backdrop of a 50 Meter swimming pool, where her father and his friends practice water aerobics, a group of men over 60. She explores her complex, emotionally layered relationship with her distant father. She uses her filmmaking process as a tool to spend more time with him. Exploring personal and existential issues with him, asking him questions surrounding motherhood, loneliness, career, and mortality.
The film discusses a very intimate relationship, Yomna’s relationship with her father. Something many of us love to see the process of, as many of us can relate to having complex relationships with our parents, and love seeing it explored on screen. The documentary has a very real and raw feeling to it through its filming and script.
Inspirations and Intentions
At first, Yomna intended to make the film about the water sports team of her father and his friends. It’s not until later that she started thinking over her intentions for the documentary, thinking, “Why exactly am I doing this film?” “Why with my father?” Yomna said. She adds, “That’s when I was sure that this film is about me and my father and our personal relationship. The pool and the team are a setup, a stage, where the real drama is happening.” Realizing then just how she wanted her feature debut to be, which made the documentary very close to her heart.
The Symbolism of the Pool
The fifty-meter swimming pool is the backdrop of the whole documentary. This makes the pool a central part of the film. Yomna was worried about taking this risk, but it was something she was sure of since the start, saying, “I had this romantic idea of entering this space, make a film there, and only get out of it after having the reconciliation I was looking for,” adding that having one location made her “create the aesthetic of the film.” The pool represents many themes of the film. It represents birth and death, which are two themes connected in the story, but mostly it represents the confined place Yomna finds herself in as a woman, saying,
“I always felt that I am stuck within when it comes to my limited choices in life as a woman.”
Portrayal Challenges
Since the film discusses Yomna’s personal life, one of the challenges she faced was finding the best way to portray herself and her father, and “balance between my code of ethics as a human and my creative vision as a director.” As Yomna was worried about people’s judgment and the possibility of exposing herself and her dad. Therefore, she decided to treat herself and her father as fictional characters, commenting, “I wrote a character profile for both of us. I thought of our arcs of self-development in this film.” She used this as a strategy to create distance between her and her father during the filming process. She adds
“Till the very end of the editing, that’s when I decided to bring our own selves back to the film. That’s when I started to write my voice-over.”
The Core Themes
Yomna touched on multiple topics, many of which she says are “the source of my fears and thus, my questions that I am trying to share with my father. “Themes like aging, loneliness, and mortality within society are reflected in the setup for the story. As she says, “A group of men over seventy, having this space for them, where they enjoy their retirement phase, sharing time with each other, leaning on their strong friendship against loneliness and their chosen sport against aging and health issues.” Being around this serene environment was very inspiring for her. She adds,
“Being in my late thirties but fearing loneliness and aging made me see these themes everywhere around me.”
International Reactions
The film was very well received at CPH DOX. People from all age groups connected to the documentary in different ways with its universal themes. Yomna comments on the reactions from the international audience: “The audience was emotionally engaged with the film, and it was clear during the Q&A and the panel that followed the film screenings.” She says, “I was very touched when the audience was laughing at the jokes, filling the cinema theater with laughter,” on the moments of laughter and humor in the movie.
Yomna is looking forward to the screening in Egypt, commenting,
“I am very hopeful it will connect to the Egyptian audience here as well. Looking forward to that.”
50 Meters Yomna Khattab’s debut feature documentary asks many life questions we ask ourselves. Yomna started creating this film at a very pivotal time in her life. She was confident that this documentary would help her figure out more about herself. Commenting that “Personal creative documentaries are not just films; they are usually a healing journey for the filmmakers.” She adds that “The open end of the film helped me as well to highlight the fact that it is still a life journey.”
Next Journey
Yomna is continuing her path of self-discovery. “I just started developing my second feature. It would be a creative personal documentary as well,” finding a lot of freedom in this genre.
Yomna is looking forward to exploring “the question of friendships in our lives” in her next filmmaking journey. She adds, “At this phase of my life, I want to ask a pressing question: ‘Who are my friends when I hit forties?’. As there aren’t a lot of films discussing this theme in Egypt.