Interview: Darine Hotait, Award-winning Writer & Film Director

By Angela Tai

You’re an incredibly accomplished individual and have worn many hats working as a writer, film director, and entrepreneur. What piqued your interest in screenwriting and directing, and when did you know this was the career path for you? 

Thank you. Well, I started as a writer at a very young age - I was writing poetry and short stories. Just being able to create these worlds from your imagination and realizing how far you can go with things, people, and coming up with situations. That kind of enticed me to start working with visuals. I had no idea if I liked film at the time. I was born in Beirut during the civil war and I didn’t have access to cinema and our TV was mostly tuned to the news. It took a little while before I was introduced to film. I was watching Bruce Lee films, that was the very beginning of me knowing what film was about. My brother went to buy the VHS tapes from the local store and we’d watch those movies over and over again. It all started from there, just realizing that I can do that. I went to film school and started my studies in filmmaking and screenwriting; I quickly realized how passionate I was about filmmaking. There’s a lot of intuition in the way I was called into this career - it was more intuitive than pre-meditative. 

Your films are thrilling and also make us think about important subjects. I watched Like Salt; you really took the viewers on this beautiful journey.   

I was talking earlier about intuition - I think I’m blessed with a strong intuition. Everything I do is by intuition. Being driven by curiosity is something that’s really important in my writing. What can these characters do and what can this space offer? Just listening to where the characters want to go, once you’re the driving force behind it, let them be, the characters will take you places. No matter where you go, it’s going to be a good place. In regards to my work, I wouldn’t say it’s extremely personal but a big part of it has to do with truth and truth is the most important factor in the work. No matter what, I feel good about it if there’s truth. 

You serve as the founder and executive director of Cinephilia Productions - an incubator to support the development of MENA region filmmakers. What do you hope to impart to other filmmakers? What are some hurdles female filmmakers face in the region and/or that you have personally experienced? 

Regarding the women filmmakers in the MENA region, I’ve actually only worked in the States as a director. However, from knowledge and observation, I think gender is not an issue when it comes to the work. In fact, the most successful filmmakers in the region are women. Gender doesn’t play into the way women filmmakers work. The problem is that filmmaking isn’t seen as much of a career. Men have to be doctors, lawyers, etc. Honestly, some of the obstacles are related to the kind of stories that a woman wants to tell. It’s more about the outreach, how far can you go telling very specific stories? Speaking from my immigrant experience, lots of immigrants may encounter this problem - needing to come up with stories that can resonate with a larger audience. But I think if we participate in this mindset then we’re creating the problem.The universality of immigrant films is something that always comes up. Now more than ever, we talk about diversity. It’s just talk, it’s not fact. It’s not reality when it comes to getting things made and getting things approved and financed. We have to see it in action. 

How much parallel do you draw from your own life experiences and the characters in your films or writing?

I don’t directly take my life to the screen but there are people that I’ve met who mark something in me that created a moment of growth for me as a person. I look at it like, what has this offered me and how can I offer this to an audience? It’s an experience - it’s a moment in time. If you’ve mastered a moment in time, nothing can go wrong in that process, you’re truthful to the emotions. You can create so much fiction, I just take the inspiration and emotion that I’ve experienced and put it in a fictional setting. In that setting, I convey the emotions that I’ve experienced. 

As an artist and filmmaker, I think there’s that struggle of creating work that makes you happy vs. work that you know the public will like. How do you find that balance?

When I’m creating, I really don’t think about the audience because then you’ll start thinking about the outcome. That will only create challenges & obstacles that you don’t really need at this stage. If you’re true to your story, there’s no need to think ahead of time since it can create blockages for yourself as a creator. I try to focus on who’s telling the story and why do I want to tell this story, not who’s receiving the story. 

COVID has affected the entertainment industry greatly. What are some strategies that you have adapted for an effective work-from-home space? And, what has been therapeutic for you during these unprecedented times? 

It has been a very difficult time for lots of people. People have been affected on all sides. Just looking at the magnitude of what has happened on a global level, we realize that things can wait a little bit until we can come together and can do our work together. Being a writer and living in my own solitude - the impact of this period was more enlightening. There were many moments of realizations and reflections about my responsibilities as a writer/creator. How do we contribute to a moment in time that doesn’t have to be an actual moment in time? We’re in it so how are we going to talk about it? We’ve taken this time to recraft our order of prioritization. 

You have directed numerous award-winning films that have been featured on AMC Networks, Sundance TV, BBC Channel, ShortsTV, IndieFlix and over a hundred international film festivals. For you, what is the one piece of work that’s deeply impacted you as an artist? 

Well, I’ve done a dozen films and they’re all my babies. It’s really hard to say one over the other because each came with their own set of challenges. One of my recent  films had a very unique life of its own. It’s my short film “I Say Dust” released in 2015. Up until today, it’s still screening