Bassam Chekhes Director of "Waiting for P.O Box"

Bassam Chekhes, you are the director of the short film “Falastein, Sandouk Al Intezar Lil Burtuqal”, a movie dealing with the problems of filmmaking. Do you speak from your own experience? Yes, of course I do. I also had to face the exact problems the characters are dealing with in my movie. However, I think they are pretty universal issues affecting every filmmaker on the planet.

Where did you shoot the movie? That was at a place at the border between Jordan and Palestine. I usually check out every location in advance, take pictures and then decide if it’s suitable for the film.

And is the geographical setting important for the story? Did it have to be in the Arab world? Well, no, it wasn’t about anything in the Arab world. Most of the time I find it rather annoying being a filmmaker from an Arab country and shooting in Arab countries. People always expect you to cover certain subjects. It really was only the landscape that fascinated me there.

So, is nature reflecting what is actually happening in the film? Well, in a way yes. There is definitely a deep relation and connection to nature. For example when one of the characters manages to finally get a hold of his mother to receive an answer to his question, the sky in the back opens up. A very convenient coincidence by the way, it is one of those perfect moments of the film.

by Franziska Knupper