Pandemic changes look of movie shoot
‘Jacir,’ set in Memphis, films with safety guidelines
Lights, camera, nasal swab — action!
The old filmmaking battle cry has been updated for the age of COVID-19, as writer-director Waheed Alqawasmi — abetted by an almost entirely local crew and the star power of “The Sopranos” actress Lorraine Bracco — is demonstrating with “Jacir,” now in production in Memphis under health guidelines intended to inhibit exposure to the novel coronavirus.
Cast and crew members are required to be tested every three days, to ensure they are not carrying the virus. Visitors — including a newspaper reporter and photographer — have to be tested and cleared before being allowed on set.
Most days, a nurse with the Shot Nurse Immunization & Wellness Service is present, a small folding table serving as a makeshift office as she pushes swabs into the noses of peo
ple who later will be hanging lights, applying makeup and manipulating digital cameras.
“It’s just much more difficult for everyone,” said the Long Island-based Bracco, 66, a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee for Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas” and a four-time Emmy nominee for her role as mobster Tony Soprano’s psychiatrist on HBO’S “The Sopranos.”
“Every little prop they give me, they have to sanitize,” Bracco said. “It takes time — a lot of time and effort that is not going onto the screen. But you know what, I love making movies. And I love walking onto a set. I had a chance to make a movie under unusual circumstances, and I said, ‘We are going to make it a learning experience, and we are going to experience it together — the good, the bad and the ugly.’ ”
Alqawasmi, 34, said the participation of “Miss Lorraine,” as he calls the actress on set, was crucial to getting “Jacir” financed, on his terms, after several years of struggle. “Despite all the difficulties, she came here. She’s given a voice to all of us.”
‘A very relevant plot for our times’
According to the film makers, “Jacir” is as timely as the coronavirus protocols that have enabled its production.
“I think it’s a very relevant plot for our times,” said New York-based co-producer Mariana Trevino.
“Jacir” is the story of a shell-shocked Syrian refugee (played by 26-year-old Beirut-born Malek Rahbani) whose duplex neighbor — a bigoted, opioid-addicted, ex-blues singer turned paranoid shut-in (Bracco) — is the lone white holdout in an ethnically transformed Memphis neighborhood.
When an unexpected friendship develops between the young man — who learns much of his English from blues and hip-hop songs — and the older woman, “the story turns into something really moving and beautiful,” Bracco said.
“My father’s shining down from heaven because I’m doing a film that would have really mattered to him,” said Memphis-born producer Amy Williams, 54, whose dad, the late Jean Morrison, a close friend of Memphis photographer William Eggleston, was a former University of Memphis philosophy professor who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma in 1965.
“It’s about humanity and love,” said Williams, who specializes in working with emerging directorial talents. “Today we’re all so separated, but these people find love in each other when they can’t find it anywhere else.”
“Jacir” — the word means “benevolent,” in Arabic — marks the feature directorial debut of Alqawasmi, a Germantown High School graduate and longtime filmmaking professional whose family emigrated to Memphis from Amman, Jordan, in August 2000.
Alqawasmi’s experiences — he describes his original teenage exposure to America as “culture shock” — invest the project with personal perspective and a distinctive character.
According to the director, about 48% of the dialog is in Arabic — unusual for any American-made movie, much less a modestly budgeted and intimately scaled independent feature coming out of Memphis.
“The movie is a poem to Memphis,” Williams said. “The music, the African American community, and the Arabic community.” (On the music front, Bracco gets a chance to sing in the film, which will include original songs recorded at the famous Royal Studios with the participation of producer Boo Mitchell, rapper Al Kapone and saxophonist Kirk Whalum, among others.)
Adapting to realities of COVID-19
On set, Alqawasmi sometimes gives direction in Arabic, especially when dealing with such actors as Tony Mehanna, 72, a respected and familiar performer in his native Lebanon, who has come to Memphis to play the owner of a Middle Eastern restaurant.
“The whole world’s working on the movie,” said Alqawasmi, pointing out the presence of Lebanese actors and French and Mexican crew members among a cast and crew of about 35 people per day, the vast majority of whom — 85%, according to Trevino — are Memphis-based.
The paychecks were much needed, according to crew members. “Once COVID hit, everything changed,” said Memphis-based cinematographer Ryan Earl Parker, 43.
Before being hired for “Jacir,” “I had projects that went from postponement to straight cancellation” Parker said.
“I’ve talked to some producers who’ve decided not to shoot until the vaccine is available. If you’re talking about 5 to 10% of your budget just to handle COVID protocol, that’s a huge chunk.”
Produced for under a half-million dollars, “Jacir” seems ideally suited to adapt to the realities of the pandemic. Because it is lean and compact, the production — independently financed, with a number of Memphis investors — can operate under a manageable sort of “bubble.”
“Everybody is aware that if we want to finish this, be mindful,” said Trevino, referring to the pandemic protocols. “Actors, do you want to see yourself on the big screen? Use common sense. Wash your hands. Follow the rules.”
Said Alqawasmi: “It shows there is a way forward.”
‘Jacir’ a ‘true passion project’
Delayed from the fall to the winter, production began Nov. 13, and is set to finish Thursday. Crews are working long hours that run deep into the night, mostly in such locations as the Rozelle neighborhood and the AnnesdaleSnowden area (where the New Way Aquaponics Farm building on Heistan Place was turned into an ICE office for the movie). Gunshots have been common at night, according to crew members, along with what Alqawasmi calls “planes, trains and automobiles” — the usual Memphis disruptions to outdoor sound recording.
While directing, Alqawasmi cuts a somewhat dashing figure, roadster cap perched on his head, stylish ankle boots on his feet, cigarette in his hand.
“He sits like a tiny little baby deer,” said Williams, as Alqawasmi, during an outdoor scene, squatted to speak to Bracco and Rahbani through the window of a battered Buick. “Like a lotus.”
After years of making short films, documentaries and commercials, Alqawasmi is well-connected in the local film community, and beyond. As a result, crew members are adopting some unusual roles as they pitch in to help the production.
For example, the Euclid Avenue house that is providing interiors for the duplex scenes is the actual home of veteran Memphis filmmaker and actor Christian Walker, who is production designer on “Jacir.” Meanwhile, Alqawasmi’s old Germantown High classmate, Kristin Jones, now a movie-industry professional, has returned home to be the film’s costume designer, while Amy Williams occasionally steps out of her producer’s shoes to serve as Bracco’s body double — a health-conscious as well as cost-conscious measure. “Because of COVID, we don’t want to let too many bodies in,” Williams said.
Trevino — whose job prior to Memphis was on the set of Ryan Murphy’s multimillion-dollar “Halston” miniseries — called “Jacir” a “true passion project,” done for love of the story more than for money.
Walker agreed, labeling the movie “a labor of love.”
When he worked on NBC’S “Bluff City Law” television series in Memphis, Walker said, he made good money, but his job was “construction.” On “Jacir,” the money is not as good, but the creative opportunity — production designer — is much better.
Said cinematographer Parker: “It’s great to be working again, after an insecure summer. It’s great to be working and making art with this Memphis community.”
“This is a tribe feeling, like we’re all in it together,” Alqawasmi said. “It’s really a game of keeping morale up, because making a movie is tough.”
“Grassroots, man,” added the Malibu, California-based Williams, whose previous credits as a producer include “Mothers and Daughters,” an indie film with Sharon Stone and Christina Ricci.
Bracco’s first time in Memphis
“Jacir” represents Bracco’s first visit to Memphis. “When Waheed came and met me (at the airport), I said, ‘I want you to show me where I am.’ ” She said director and actor drove all over town, visiting famous and offbeat places of historical significance, and touring all types of neighborhoods.
Afterward, Bracco wasted little time visiting Graceland, where she purchased an Elvis-patterned shirt that she wore during a recent Zoom appearance on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”
“What a thrill, and what a check off my bucket list,” she said of her Graceland tour. “I bought a jacket, I bought a shirt. I am so stoked about my new gear from Lansky’s.”
Bracco also demonstrated Memphis spirit Nov. 24, when she had barbecue from Corky’s delivered to the set for the cast and crew, as a sort of farewell present to mark her final day of shooting.
Asked why she decided to come to Memphis to star in such a modestly budgeted movie, Bracco — whose renovation of a 200-year-old home in Sicily is the focus of an HGTV series, “My Big Italian Adventure” — said: “It’s simple. When you buy real estate, the three words everybody says are ‘Location, location, location.’ And when you read a script, it’s ‘Story, story, story.’ ”
She said the script was both inspiring and challenging. “I don’t think I ever played a woman who was so unhappy, and a drug addict, and so miserable in her life. No makeup, she doesn’t take care of herself. She exists in her own little world of nothing, basically.”
And while she agreed the story of “Jacir” seems particularly pertinent to 2020 America, she said its theme of human connectedness transcends the politics and prejudices of the moment. “The truth of the matter is that it’s relevant anywhere, any time.”
Alqawasmi said he is confident “Jacir” will find distribution, and should be available to audiences by at least the middle of next year. “At this point I’m not worried about who distributes it, I just want people to see it. It’s been the most rewarding freaking experience of my life.”
“The movie is a poem to Memphis.”
Amy Williams
Memphis-born producer of “Jacir”