Today we’d like to introduce you to Samer Saifan
Hi Samer, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I’m a first-generation Palestinian filmmaker; my family and I moved around a few times ever since I was young. I started out in Thousand Oaks, California, but when the market crashed in 2008, my dad moved us overseas to Kuwait City for a few years. Films, music, and writing have always been a part of my life in one way or another. You learn a lot about yourself growing up as a loner in another country, especially when you don’t know the language—you’re forced to rely on things like sports or video games to keep you entertained or make friends. I’ve always enjoyed watching movies and being creative, but I never thought there was a real opportunity to make a living out of it at that age.
After graduating from high school, I didn’t get into any of the big colleges I wanted. My grades in sophomore year were terrible, which ironically was when I began to find my voice as an artist through writing. I wrote a lot of poetry that year, finished a couple of screenplays, and started working on a novel by the time I graduated. I always knew I didn’t want a traditional corporate job. Coming from a very traditional family, I respect people in stable professions, but I knew it wasn’t the life for me and I wouldn’t be happy doing that. Recognizing my talent and passion for storytelling, I decided that was the path for me.
One day, I revisited one of the first short stories I ever wrote and ended up grabbing my dad’s film camera to direct a homemade short film with my brother as the actor. I submitted that film in my portfolio to a couple of film schools.
After a year of online community classes at Santa Monica, I was accepted as a transfer student into both New York University and USC. USC accepted me into their general school but said I didn’t have enough credits to start in the film school. NYU offered me the chance to start right away, and not wanting to wait any longer, I decided to go with them. That was definitely the biggest decision I had to make at that point in my life, even bigger than when I decided to quit baseball after so many years. Moving away from home to the other side of the country was very scary at first, but it forced me to grow as a person and gave me the space to work on my craft and form my identity.
A few years later, I’m now entering my final semester at NYU. Growing up overseas and in high school, I never met any other filmmakers or writers, so it has been a great experience to make connections with other artists for the first time in my life.
I’m eager to start working at the professional level in the film industry and to secure real budgets for my projects. I have the stories; I just need the resources. I know there’s a long road ahead of me, but it’s only been two years since I started this journey, and my life has already changed so much. I’m hopeful and excited to see what comes next.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Of course, nothing is ever easy. I am grateful to have had such a supportive family and system around me growing up. I always felt like an outsider – I was very alone as an Arab kid in Thousand Oaks and also as a foreigner even in the Middle East. And there were always personal challenges I had to face in my life. Those first few years of high school were really dark for me – my relationship with my parents wasn’t the best, and I felt lost in terms of my place in the world and what my future would hold.
The arts and my creativity have always been the only things that provided structure for me. Even now, if I don’t work on a project or express myself in some way, things can quickly turn for the worse. However, I’m in a great place today. While there’s always some form of struggle, I feel I’ve matured significantly in these last few years, and filmmaking has given me a confidence and sense of self I never had before. I’m starting to find my own ground to stand on and take pride in.
I know there will inevitably be more obstacles and tough times ahead in my life, but each year I find myself more capable of facing those challenges without letting them overwhelm me. Of course, there are still times when I feel anxious about the future, but as you grow older, you realize that things generally end up the way they should if you allow them to, and you can’t worry about things beyond your control.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m a film writer, director, producer, cinematographer, and editor.
I mainly specialize in writing and directing narrative films. My most recent work was my independent feature ‘Red Rain’ – a psychological thriller.
It’s doing pretty great on a festival run right now. We’ve won Best Narrative Feature in the “Remember the Future World Film Festival in Cannes” and Best Student Feature in “Toronto Independent Film Festival of Cift” along with 10+ other awards from different festivals around the world. We’re also won awards at multiple Los Angeles and New York City festivals.
Honestly, I felt making that film was my real film school. We shot it in Malibu on my little digital camera and I pretty much had to do all aspects of pre and post production myself because I didn’t know many student filmmakers here at the time and couldn’t afford to pay professionals. We had a crew of 4 NYU students and shot everything in about 3 twelve hour days. I went on to edit it for the next 6 months or so.
You learn a lot about yourself when making a film, whatever is going on in your life at the time will ultimately make it’s way into the work you’re doing. There was a lot of learning moments for me in getting that film completed. It really taught me the importance of collaboration and how choosing the right team around you is so crucial in being the best filmmaker you can be. I felt I was really limited in directing that film because I was holding so many hats and had to really carry the project on my back. There’s only so much a few student crew members can help you with, especially if they aren’t invested in the film as much as you are. Nevertheless, I pulled it off and am really grateful it’s been having some success.
Looking back and knowing what I know now, I see how absolutely crazy it was to think I could accomplish something that big with such little resources. I’m really proud I was able to pull that off – I don’t think many of the filmmakers I know could have done that. On my next project, my NYU thesis film, I have 2 producers helping and will have a crew of 20 people, so I am much more excited to collaborate with other artists and have the chance to focus more on the creative side rather than dealing with all the production logistics of everything alone. We shoot that in September.
Right now for the summer, I’m just focused on pre production for the film and I’m actually editing a short film I just shot with my brother. It’s a remastered version of the first film I ever made that got me into NYU.
I think one of the things that sets me a part from a lot of other filmmakers I know is that I never grew up around other film kids or artists, I grew up traveling the world. Being the youngest of much older older siblings, I learned a lot of deep philosophical questions about life and was also exposed to a lot of culture and art. All that, along with the struggles of coming from an oppressed people, I feel I have a much different perspective to offer than everyone else. I also feel I have such a natural ability and vision for what I want to create – I’ve been seeing stories in my head ever since I was 5 years old, I just never knew what outlet I could use.
I also feel like a lot of the people that I see in this business aren’t made for high pressure or being a leader, that’s something sports taught me really well from a young age. Being a captain on a team, you quickly learn how to deal with other people, motivating them and getting the best out of them – and you do it all for an end goal of success. When you get the opportunity to be a leader, it forces to you live up to a higher standard of yourself, and it also puts you in a position to learn from people from all walks of life.
I see a lot of directors nowadays just make films because they just want to make cool things, and I get that, cinema is a very aesthetic art form, but there has to be some kind of depth to your work. You have to a perspective to get off your chest, otherwise you’re just taking up space from people who truly need art to survive and tell their story. If you don’t have a story to tell yet, then go find one within yourself and your experience as a human being. Filmmakers will get all this great equipment and lighting, but a lot of times the writing lacks or they just don’t know what they want. When I’m directing a project, I take pride in my dedicated preparation and lack of second guessing – I know the vision of what I’m trying to accomplish – it’s just about being open to collaboration and putting others in a position where they can be fulfilled and use their skills to help bring the story to life. I have so many story ideas, the problem is choosing which one you’re going to spend the next 6 months or year of your life working on. I’ve had to deal with some people who really doubted me or tried to invalidate my work as an artist – but you just have to have to keep moving forward and trust that your work is coming from a true place that’s striving for something authentic and special.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
I think anyone who decides to pursuit any creative field is inevitably bound to take some risk. It’s a tough business to find a way into – everyone thinks they are very talented and someone always has an advantage over you in terms of their connections or finances, but I believe at the end of the day, if you have enough talent you’ll get your opportunity. The world isn’t fair but it is a malleable if you have something unique offer. But you can only be unique if you keep working on your craft and pushing yourself to innovate. The one common thing with all successful people is that they didn’t give up and they put themselves into the work they were doing.
When you’re trying to make it to the highest level of something, people will always try to discourage you with these statistic and probabilities of why it won’t work or how you’re not good enough, but I really never believed that applied to me because I was confident in my talent and my mindset compared to anyone else. If you’re good at what you do, you make your own statistics. And besides, I never felt like I had any other choice but writing or directing, there was no other job I could work as hard at and be as passionate about. And as you get older, you start to realize that all these people you’re surrounded by really don’t know much more than you do. We’re all human beings who suffer and fail and learn, it’s a journey.
There’s risks in all aspects of life – there’s risk of failure in doing what you love and there’s a risk to choosing a traditional career path – you just have to accept the fact that the amount of risk something has doesn’t guarantee success. You will fail one day, I’m only 21 and I have failed so many times in my life and have made so many mistakes both personally and in film, but they’ve made me grow so much into the person I am today, and I know in the next 5 to 10 years, I’ll fail and learn even more and become an even more well rounded person. It’s only a failure if you don’t learn from it and get better. If you don’t give up, you can’t fail.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://samersaifan.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/Samdeezi
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfRL6unY17QtEDK6S3f7U8A
