Abstract
Scenes from the film Fariha, where young filmmakers put themselves at risk to show the joy of music
CREDIT: (film stills) Dheya al-Mandi; (1980s) Fariha Hassan; (poster) Badr Yousef and Dheya al-Mandi
EVERY DETAIL IS captured fondly by the lens. The kiosk, a whimsical farrago of vividly colourful scarves, dusty packaged goods and glittery tinsel. The sun passing gently over the woman’s animated features as she sings.
“Sure, my voice is nice. Even if it weren’t, I can always add some sugar to sweeten it,” she giggles.
It is a visual language of love. But for Dheya al-Mandi, a 27-year-old cinematographer from Yemen, it is also a forbidden language.
“In my city Sana’a, if you hold a camera, it is more dangerous than if you hold a gun,” al-Mandi said. He recalled how even children would scatter in fear when they saw him carrying his filming equipment, and how Houthi soldiers accused him of being a spy for Saudi Arabia or the USA.
“To them, if you hold a gun, you’re a good person, a normal person. But if they see you holding a camera, that’s when they ask you why you are shooting.”
Film is a gift al-Mandi has nurtured since early childhood even when means were scarce. As a teenager, he started shooting pictures on his phone and noticed he had a talent for framing beautiful shots and observing small details.
The dreams he grew up with were burdened by war, loss and despair: since 2014, Yemen has been engulfed in a devastating civil war marked for many people by near-constant displacement and famine. The conflict is often called one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Most of Yemen’s northern highlands and the capital, Sana’a, are controlled by the Iran-backed Houthi movement – also known as Ansar Allah – an armed rebel group made up of mostly Zaidi Shia Muslims. Yemen’s internationally-recognised government controls much of the south and east of the country. Longstanding conflict between the Houthis and the Saudi Arabian-backed government has left more than half of the country’s population in desperate need of humanitarian assistance.
But if anything, al-Mandi said, adversity only made his dreams loftier.
“When you make art in a place which is not safe, it is more special than when you do it in a place of sanctuary,” he said. “People living in dangerous places – we still love to sing, to dance, and we do it with all these consequences and difficulties facing us. It becomes more beautiful.”
This is the subject of the 2024 half-hour documentary he worked on, Fariha, directed by Badr Yousef. Fariha follows the story of its eponymous heroine, Fariha Hassan, once a well-known Yemeni singer from the coastal city of Hodeidah.
Hassan abandoned her successful career decades ago, disillusioned with the lack of support and respect for artists and repressive cultural attitudes towards female performers. Displaced from her city and now in her seventies, Hassan has returned to singing on the street and in her kiosk in Sana’a, where the director Yousef discovered her surrounded by curious passers-by and admirers. The film tracks her aspiration to return to the stage once more.
“I am Fariha, and I make people happy with my songs,” is her sunny introduction. It is easy to see how the team of filmmakers fixed on her as a subject. She is bright, defiant and passionate. She is also flamboyant and expressive, wearing an eclectic mixture of fabrics and prints, gesturing and emoting theatrically. Her name means joy.
Hassan was discovered in the 1980s, whilst working as a hospital janitor. She would while away the hours singing as she cleaned, her powerful voice reverberating in the long corridors. It didn’t take long for her to be noticed, and she was invited to join the band of the well-known pioneering Yemeni singer Nabat Ahmed, with whom she toured. Hassan then became well-established in her own right, later recording albums alone.
Decades later, her voice is as strong and versatile as it was then, modulating effortlessly between soaring belts and softer, fluttering melodies. She sings Yemeni traditional songs, but also improvisations, her hands ghosting swiftly across the tabla drums she sometimes uses for percussion. With no musical education, her ability is instinctive, almost mystical.
Capturing Hassan’s unbreakable spirit meant two years of intimate involvement in her life, tracking every moment closely with the camera. Al-Mandi and the director recorded her on the streets, at her work, in the kitchen enjoying quiet moments with her beloved cat Sudy. On one occasion, the camera was rolling as she happened upon a lover from decades ago in the street who had also been displaced from her city, capturing the tears of their long-awaited reunion.
“In documentary, the most important thing is that you film everything,” al-Mandi said. “You have to show every detail, every interruption. The interruptions build the story.”
Some interruptions were less welcome. One day, filming with Hassan in the labyrinthine streets of the Old City, they were approached by Houthi rebels and detained. Unbeknownst to their captors, the camera and microphones were still recording, capturing the entire ordeal. Al-Mandi said he promised as a condition of his release that he would never hold a camera again.
“The Houthis are afraid of the media and the news, they don’t want people to see how we really live in Yemen,” he said. “But filming is my dream. Why should I leave it because of your war?”
Now in her seventies, Fariha Hassan was a popular singer in the 1980s
In some ways, the young filmmakers al-Mandi and Yousef found in Hassan a mirror of their own conflict, between passion and repression. Her transgressive determination to sing in public despite stigma and intimidation, al-Mandi said, inspired his own decision to keep pursuing film. Since filming finished, everyone involved in the project has fled the country. Al-Mandi has sought asylum in the UK.
The filmmakers also found hope that one day the rich visual and musical cultures of Yemen might be encouraged to thrive. Hassan, al-Mandi said, is a role model for people in Yemen, encouraging them to keep making art even when adversity seems overwhelming.
Fariha Hassan has had her return to music documented after she was displaced from her home in Hodeidah
“Even people living in a place of war want to see the art of their country,” he said. “The beauty of the streets, the artists, the emotions and feelings of the people, how they love each other, how they could live in peace. That’s why I want to tell the truth of this place.”
Footnotes