Sometimes the best documentaries start out on a whim.
When Asmahan Bkerat met the Palestinian Bedouin family at the heart of her debut Concrete Land, she had no idea that eight years later she’d be presenting their story to the world. We’re sitting in Sea Containers hotel, right by the Thames, the day after the UK premiere at the London Film Festival. Just a few seats away are two of her subjects, Awad and his daughter Eman, and it’s the first time they’ve left Jordan. “It’s a complete culture shock for them,” says Bkerat. “First train ride, first plane … everything!”
Bkerat gives me a promotional pin badge for the film, bearing a picture of Badrya, a woolly black sheep and one of the characters in this striking familial portrait. It all started when, quite by coincidence, Bkerat and her friend Ban Marqua (the film’s eventual editor and producer) met Badrya and her owner, Hakima, one of the family’s elders, on the outskirts of Amman.
“The sheep is walking beside her like a dog,” she smiles. “That was a conversation starter.” Hakima invited them to her home. “We were very surprised to find a small tent settlement embedded in the city. I’d never seen that before.”
Bkerat began shooting – initially resulting in a 2017 sheep-focused short, called Badrya. Encouraged to keep going, she kept the cameras rolling – capturing an overwhelming 400 hours of footage. “I did question myself a couple of times on what I was doing because in the middle you don’t know if it’s going anywhere,” she says. “You anticipate for something to happen, but it might not. There might be a story. There might not be a story. It took a lot of patience. But they were very patient with me, honestly. I was filming them sleeping. I was filming them crying. I was there all the time.”
What ultimately emerged is a powerful tale of displacement, as this Afro-Palestinian family is facing the loss of the land they live on, thanks to proposed construction. It hardly helps that one of their neighbours, living in a luxurious-looking walled villa, has filed an eviction order. His callous argument is that the families living in this nearby tented settlement cause pollution – noise, smell, refuse. “I think his mentality speaks to a much wider perspective of thinking about yourself and not thinking about others,” says Bkerat. “And the way he looked down on people … he’s just treating them like they’re nothing.”
The film took on far greater resonance after the events of October 7, 2023, and the subsequent destruction of Gaza by Israeli forces. “I think we all became aware that inherently all stories are political,” says Bkerat. “And now more than ever because the reality of the region shapes all of our experiences. I think one of the things that the film speaks to is that displacement and colonisation does not only happen on the ground in the same country. In fact, it has a much wider ripple effect that affects everybody, and it continues for generations.”
One of the most heartbreaking scenes comes as Hakima is mourning the loss of her extended family in Gaza, many of whom have been killed. “Today my heart is with Gaza,” she cries, as she sings a traditional Bedouin song, one that expresses her utter helplessness, being stranded from her folk. “She’s describing her pain and she just wants to go back to her homeland,” says Bkerat, who admits she was “very surprised” by this sudden outburst. “I had to contain myself and not respond because I wanted to capture it.”
Aside from the slightly bizarre quirk that two other films (The History of Concrete; Concrete Turned To Sand) are also on the festival circuit right now, the English title of Bkerat’s film also lodges in the mind. It’s about the “juxtaposition between the concrete and the land”, she explains, “and how sterile and inorganic concrete is in comparison to the land, and how it devours everything … I think it’s fitting in a way. It describes the state of the world. Everything is turning into concrete.”
No pun intended, but Bkerat’s next task is to shepherd the film into the world. While it’s set to be screened at the famous documentary festival IDFA and the London Palestinian Film Festival in November, her biggest concern is making sure those in the Bedouin community see it. Easier said than done. “In Jordan, we have only a couple of cinemas, maybe five in the whole country.” A mobile screens-on-wheels is one possible solution, to “put the film out there as much as possible”.
For a filmmaker who hadn’t even seen an observational documentary until she 2018’s Afghan activist story Laila at the Bridge, she’s now fully committed to the art form. Alongside various projects she’s developing, Bkerat is working with colleagues to establish the first documentary association in the West Asia and North Africa region. “We have a few organisations that support documentary, but not an association that supports documentary filmmakers,” she explains.
As they say, from little acorns do mighty oaks grow.