Fatima Al-Banawi On The Power of Saudi Storytelling

by Devinder BainsJuly 7, 2021September 12, 2021

Having made Time Magazine’s Next Generation Leaders’ list, here’s precisely how the all-around multi-hyphenate and Harvard post-graduate uses her writing, films and art to narrate the Kingdom’s stories that need to be told and heard…

“There’s one thing I’ve learned being Saudi, being a woman and being a Muslim, having lived in both the West and the Arab world: being underrepresented is sometimes much easier than being misrepresented.” Fatima Al-Banawi looks thoughtfully out of the window at her breathtaking view of The Nile before she continues. “With Saudi, as a country, as a people, and also as an individual, I’ve often been misrepresented.”

We’re on a Zoom call that lasts almost two hours, and while the actress, filmmaker, writer and artist might be away working in Cairo, staying at her grandmother’s exquisite home on the banks of one of the world’s most famous stretches of water, it’s a conversation that’s very much centred around her mission to showcase The Kingdom as something so much more than the stereotypes and stigmas that are often assigned to her home.

“Many countries, and so many individuals live their lives peacefully without feeling the pressures of denying or proving anything – they just live. But being misrepresented channels this sort-of constant drill; it’s like being on a hamster wheel, one with extra bumps that you’re constantly trying to manoeuvre,” she explains. “But the most crucial thing I’ve learned from manoeuvring these misconceptions is to be true, and to be myself.”  

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And this has meant finding her own unique ways of giving her people, her country, and the nuances that they experience, a voice; be it through her art projects, the acting roles she accepts, or the feature films and series that she writes.

Fatima, who studied Psychology at Jeddah’s Effat University, before taking a post graduate in Theological Studies focusing on women, gender and Islamic studies at Harvard University, first rose to fame as the protagonist Bibi in the Jeddah-based comedy love story, Barakah Meets Barakah. The feature received critical acclaim at its debut at The Berlin Film Festival and went on to be selected to represent Saudi Arabia in the Best Foreign Language Film category for the Oscars in 2016. The story, which navigates the journey of a young couple attempting to date in a society where both meeting in public unchaperoned and physical contact is forbidden, struck a chord with local and international audiences alike, and gave Fatima her first taste of celebrity.

Around the same time, Fatima, who has since appeared in countless acting roles, was also working on The Other Story Project – her own art assignment, leaving pens and paper in offices and universities around Jeddah, encouraging people to anonymously write a story about their life on a single page. She intended the project to last a few months but it continued for almost four years into 2018, into a fast-changing and more accessible Jeddah.

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“In 2017 and 2018, there was the establishing of the Entertainment Authority and it created so many platforms and real public spaces that offered festivals and pop-ups, so that’s when I started renting booths at bazaars and festivals,” says Fatima, who saw a huge uptick in the quality of the stories she started to receive. “In 2015, The Other Story Project was so progressive for what people were comfortable with talking about – we didn’t have the words to express, the stories were shy and reserved. But, now with social media we are used to sharing our narratives. It’s an organic process to be able to talk, it’s exactly why I started the project, we believe in the power of storytelling, to humanise, to break stereotypes.”

After using the content for a number of performance-art displays in the Middle East and Paris, Fatima started work on a social memoir four years ago. The book which she says “is almost ready for print” incorporates some of the 5,000 stories she’s collected over the years, alongside her thoughts and insights on a transforming society. The project was initially inspired by the death of her grandfather in 2014, and her desire to learn more about Jeddah and its diverse inhabitants.

“My grandfather was from the historic downtown of Jeddah, so I decided to start collecting real stories from the people all over the city. And the stories themselves take us through seven different chapters – each is a journey that I author in a social memoir,” Fatima reveals. “There’s a chapter called Moments and there’s a story about a woman who takes a car for a drive through the streets of Saudi and it’s such an adventure at the time because she’s doing something unusual, but I then question on a social level: would this even be a story we talk about in 2020? Because today, Saudi women are driving. What makes a story really a story?” 

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And these social changes that Saudi Arabia is embracing have also had a positive impact on Fatima’s workload. As well as the book, Fatima, who already has a number of series and films to her name, is currently working on two scripts for Saudi stories, one for MBC with the working title The Lamb which she can’t reveal much about, and her own feature with the working title Basma, which tells the nuanced story of a father-daughter relationship.

“We’re living in a time where there’s such thirst for good stories, and I’ve been keeping them in my pockets and in my mind for years. So now there’s this appetite, it’s like, Fatima: we’re getting out,” she laughs. “The changes we’re experiencing in Saudi are behind this new thirst, and this is also being supported by the wider region. For years, no one would approach me about screenplays or a feature film in Egypt, but now, since I am Saudi and I’ve been working in the industry for years, there is this exchange of ‘let’s work together.’ Egypt has the years of expertise and technical capacity and in Saudi, we have the stories.”

It’s also meant an increase in roles as a Saudi actress, as the regional film industry navigates a new cinema audience in The Kingdom. But in many cases, Fatima’s role goes beyond purely acting in these projects.

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“They approach me early on in the draft stage because they want my opinion on the screenplay, so I end up being like a cultural consultant,” she explains. “Sometimes, I see topics that are very Egyptian or very Syrian depending on where the writer comes from and I have to explain that these topics are not discussed in Saudi. There was one case when the conversation was about [something taboo] because the writer is from a culture where this topic was very prominent, but I explained that a more relatable subject for Saudis would be early marriage or maybe domestic violence, and they took that on board.”

And female empowerment is something very much on Fatima’s radar, after graduating from Effat, Fatima worked at the Family Protection Society in Jeddah and then as a social development and women’s empowerment consultant at the Islamic Development Bank.

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“At the Family Protection Society, I was a psychological and social caseworker with women that were fighting domestic violence,” she explains. “And it was an eye-opening experience. I learned from these women probably more than they’ve ever learned from me. I met those women that were less fortunate, the circumstances they lived in were brutal. I remember a 16-year-old who was fighting violence from her father for years and her biggest wish was to go back to school, and when we made that happen, she had the happiest eyes and a spark in her soul that I can never let go of. These women are the reason I went to Harvard, because they taught me the value of lifelong learning.”

And even while studying at the esteemed university, Fatima was able to draw from this experience. “At Harvard, the anthropology classes looked at how people in different societies or in different countries have different ways to resist, persist or have a certain resilience within themselves. This 16-year-old was resisting by learning, by going back to school,” explains Fatima. “ I discovered that protest, holding posters and signs isn’t the only way to resist. Change can come from inside our walls, through deep conversations. It’s why I’m so very happy that Saudi is now having critical thinking as part of the curriculum. When change is integrated within the educational system, it’s real. It’s everlasting, not just for the purpose of headlines.”

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And it was during Fatima’s time at Harvard that she decided to pursue a career in acting and filmmaking. “I was working on research that was theological but also more contemporary; studying representations of Arab identity and women in contemporary literature and film, and I decided to merge my love of storytelling, my studies and social-impact work,” she says. “In 2015, everyone was like; you’re a fresh graduate and now you’re acting? What on earth? And I would say, ‘bear with me a couple of years.’ And now it’s coming through!”

So, was convincing family and peers a challenge? “My parents are very curious people, and they encourage dialogue and storytelling,” she says. “My father always says ‘dialogue is a way to achieve a goal but in our society dialogue has rarely ever existed, we need to make it a goal’. So, on set, I’m always saying: ‘let’s have a dialogue.’ It’s so important.”

As we’re talking about her father, I circle back to Basma, the script about father-daughter relationships she’s been working on for nearly two years. Is there an autobiographical element? “I wouldn’t say so, it’s fiction, but it is definitely stemming from truth,” Fatima explains. “My work is always inspired from true cases or scenarios that I’ve witnessed or experienced or heard from my family or friends.”

It’s not actually that surprising that the story isn’t based on her own relationships – Fatima rarely talks about her family in interviews. “I would say I’m very diplomatic in writing about my private life,” she laughs. “I am very, very private, I wouldn’t share details that would affect others because often our stories are not only ours, so I’m careful.”

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She does expand on family life though. “We’re a big nuclear family, my mother and father married very early, I’m the third child and I have a lot of half-siblings,” she reveals. “We’re very dynamic, very different, but also so much alike – it’s fun. We’re always full of stories in our household but the house became quieter because we all got busier with travels and obligations.” But they still find time to be together. “My mother really champions group trips,” she laughs. “We go to the Maldives or Bali and then we’re like the loudest family on the island. There’s probably 12 or 13 of us with all the children.”

And this desire for privacy can sometimes make her celebrity status a little challenging. “I could choose to just be a writer and avoid the celebrity, but I think everything comes with advantages and disadvantages,” admits Fatima, who recently became an ambassador for Cartier. “I remind myself to be true to me, and to use the celebrity status for a purpose as well. I want to speak to different audiences and to different countries.”

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And a new audience she’ll be reaching this month is in Egypt with the premier of the series 60 Seconds – where she adopts the local dialect to play her first major Egyptian role; something she’s perfected over the years on her many trips to Cairo. It comes after her one other Egyptian part in the Netflix hit series Paranormal.

Fatima is a busy woman, and a self-confessed workaholic, but she’s started thinking more about letting her hair down. “I’ve been so responsible growing up that I also want to let go now,” she admits. “I want to play when I’m on set, I really want to set this soul free and have her enjoy it and also to make sure that people around her are also enjoying the craft. Being able to sustain yourself within the fabric of this industry and the chaos of the bureaucracies and the names and figures… it’s a lot, so if you’ve made it through intact, then let’s have fun. It’s a conversation that I constantly have with myself. When do I let go? Do we appreciate the moment we’re in? It’s like we just do things for gadgets and sharing, but let’s just be.”

Photography: Xevi Muntane Styling: Anna Castan Editor in Chief: Olivia Phillips Art Director: Oscar Yañez Fashion Director: Anna Castan Market Editor: Nour Bou Ezz Hair: Dani Hiswani Make-Up: Denny Clements Photographer’s Assistant: Tony Abou Styling Assistants: Anusha Hittalmakki and Jasmina Rossi Studio Manager: Johana Dana Producer: Elle Hutchinson Production Assistants: Jody Hassan and Georgia Parker Set Designer: Benn Robinson

From Harper’s Bazaar Saudi’s Summer 2021 Issue.

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