Director’s cut wins award for hair salon film
AN ISRAELI film-maker has scooped a prestigious British prize for a documentary she made while working at an Arab hair salon in Haifa.
The Shampoo Summit, directed by Iris Zaki, won the Innovation Award at the Arts and Humanities Research in Film Awards 2017.
Ms Zaki, who has been studying for a PhD at the University of London’s Royal Holloway College, spent a month washing hair at Fifi’s hair salon, which is run by Christian Arabs.
While there, she set up an unmanned camera above the sink which recorded the frank and open exchanges she had while washing customers’ hair.
The footage led to a documentary, Women in Sink, which has been shown at 120 international film festivals and received numerous awards. Ms Zaki produced a shorter version, the sevenminute Shampoo Summit.
Ms Zaki said: “The decision to film in Haifa was a natural choice for me since it’s my hometown.
“I moved between the desire to get to know Arab citizens in person and a passion to explore my own identity through these encounters; and between my instinctive fear when I hear Arabic, which is the result of growing up in Israel, and the guilt I carry towards a community which I believe was, and still is, treated unequally.”
Contrary to her expectations, Ms Zaki was received with open arms — and plenty of food. As she soon found out, the salon was something of an institution, popular with both Jewish and Arab women.
“Within a complex reality, I’ve found a story of friendship, acceptance and respect between Arab and Jewish women.
“It’s a little island of sanity,” she said. Both films were submitted as part of
Ms Zaki’s PhD, which she used to explore her technique of
Iris Zaki unmanned filming. This followed an earlier project which came about almost by accident.
“When I first came to Britain eight years ago I worked as a receptionist in an ultra-Orthodox hotel in north London,” the 39-year-old told the JC. “I had the first chance in my life to speak with ultra-Orthodox men and women and I was fascinated by it, so I made a documentary about my conversations. “I didn’t want to use a film crew so I left a camera on a tripod. We all forgot it was there and very organic conversations evolved,” she said. The resulting film, My Kosher Shifts, also received critical acclaim. Ms Zaki is currently working on a film exploring her unusual family history — about her Egyptian Jewish grandmother who married a Muslim and made aliyah. “It’s a Muslim-Jewish love story,” she said.