REBEL: An Interview With Directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah

Introduction

The daring new film Rebel was written and directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah (directors of Bad Boys for Life and the permanently shelved Batgirl film). The film focuses on two Muslim brothers from Belgium who battle against the threat of radicalization and a mother who will do anything to protect her children. It’s an emotionally evocative and visually stunning film that has been described by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah as their most personal film yet.

Rebel tells the story of Kamal (Aboubakr Bensaihi), who resolves to change his life for the better, leaving Belgium to help war victims in Syria. But, having arrived, is forced to join a militia and is left stranded in Raqqa. Back home, his younger brother Nassim (Amir El Arbi) quickly becomes easy prey for radical recruiters, who promise to reunite him with his brother. Their mother, Leila (Lubna Azabal), fights to protect her youngest son.

Belgian-Moroccan Muslim filmmakers Adil and Bilall first gained attention in 2015 with their film Black, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, where it won the Discover Section. Further film credits include Gangsta, which was selected in Palm Springs, where Adil & Bilall were shortlisted in “10 Directors to Watch.” In 2020, they directed Bad Boys for Life, starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, which grossed over $426 million at the worldwide box office.

Adil & Billal’s television credits include pilots for the critically acclaimed FX series Snowfall in 2017, as well as the series Soil, which debuted on Netflix in 2021 after winning three Ensor Awards in Belgium, including Best Television Show. More recently, they directed the pilot and additional episodes of the highly anticipated series Ms. Marvel, starring Iman Vellani. They also served as executive producers on the series, which will debut on Disney+ on June 8, 2022.

Cinema Scholars’ own Glen Dower recently sat down with the directors of Rebel, Adil El Arbi, and Bilall Fallah. They spoke about the balancing act of directing big-budget productions (Ms. Marvel) vs. smaller semi-auto-biographical features, the fantastic cast, and working on bringing Rebel to the screen for eight years, among other topics.

Interview

Glen Dower:

Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, how are we doing Sirs?

Adil El Arbi:

Good, good, good. How are you?

Glen Dower:

I’m really good. It’s a pleasure to meet you both to talk about Rebel. I know you guys are also of Belgian background like your main character, Jamal. Is this a ‘hypothetical’ autobiographical film for you?

Adil El Arbi:

This certainly is based on people that we know.

Bilall Fallah:

Yeah, I really saw it firsthand. I come from a neighborhood where the highest percentage of young Muslims went to Syria. So I really saw it. I played soccer with them, went to school, and then saw them one by one leave. It was really…it was phenomenal. We didn’t understand at the time, but we wanted to understand what was happening. And then later the attacks happened in Europe and these propaganda ISIS videos came out. I saw these kids that, or young guys that I knew, and they were talking in our language in this really dark ISIS video. So it was really painful and painful to see these guys that have the same background as us being Muslim, Moroccan, Belgian people. It was very important for us to tell this story and understand how people radicalize so fast and how this phenomenon happened. We wanted to tell this with all the complexities and nuances because there are a lot of TV shows and movies that really don’t show the Muslim perspective. That’s really what we wanted to do. To see it from the inside out.

Glen Dower:

You’ve obviously done the so-called big Hollywood blockbusters. Was there an element of ‘that was for them, this is for us’?

Adil El Arbi:

Yeah. I think that there’s always this kind of balance. It’s not necessarily as extreme as doing something for them or for us. It’s just like when we grew up and still, now we enjoy both. I think that when you go to a Jerry Bruckheimer film, you love all of these movies. You love to go to the cinema and see a good Michael Bay movie. And at the same time, you also love watching a very controversial Oliver Stone movie or Spike Lee movie that’s really in your face. So it’s just like that broad spectrum of cinema that we very much enjoy watching. And to get the chance to make it, that’s a big honor and a big privilege and we learned from both of them. The big Hollywood techniques. The Jerry Bruckheimer School of Action Technique helped us in achieving the war sequences of Rebel, which I don’t think would’ve been the same if we had not had that experience. So we love this balance. I think that what we really love is to try to find a movie that has a bit of both basically.

Glen Dower:

Of course, there are scenes in Rebel that have a Saving Private Ryan/Black Hawk Down feel. Then we have the music video moments which seem to come out of nowhere. Then they beautifully transition into the next scene. Was there a feeling for you guys, that’s show what we can do here, but keep true to the story?

Bilall Fallah:

Yeah, for us it was really important to make a movie that told the story as genuine and as honest as possible. That’s why we worked on it for eight years. We did a lot of research, but at the same time, we also wanted to make a cinema movie. To make it for a wide audience to tell this very important story that people would otherwise not see. It’s just a very artistic small movie. But for everything we do, there’s always a reason why we did it. In the case of the musical aspects, this subject matter is so complex and the emotions are so complex that sometimes you cannot achieve the same thing with a dialogue scene. And there’s something about music and dance and poetry that reaches people. Or reaches people on another level. It transcends something that’s just like a dialogue scene.

It gives you a feeling even if you don’t understand the words or the singing or dancing, you feel and understand what it is and it really explains the character from the inside. You go in the mind of our character. And at the same time, ISIS was against music, it was against dancing, it was against dancing, it was against female voices. Instruments. So for us, it was very important to make a movie against ISIS, and by doing it with dance, poetry, and music, it was very important. And it’s also really a part of our Arabic culture. It is something that throughout hundreds of years, has been part of our culture and ISIS is just the dark version of the obscurantism of our culture. And by making it with the musical and all the poetry, it shows the real version of how we experience our culture and our religion.

Glen Dower:

Speaking of which, I’m currently in Doha, Qatar. I’ve lived here for two years. I’ve lived in Abu Dhabi for five years, working in education and I love it. The people are awesome, but there are certain elements of course I see as being a Westerner from Ireland. Certain elements of the culture I see as archaic if you like. The character of Noor was really important to me. I’ve taught girls from Syria, and Lebanon, and these girls are bright, they’re intelligent and have gone on to do great things and I am so proud of them. So the character of Noor, I felt really opened up so much to the story. We could have just focused on Jamal the whole time and of course his brother and his mother. But no, she was a doctor. She wanted to help. Of course, she had to cover herself and there was the black comedy moment where he lost her in the crowd because they’re all covered. Was it a priority for you guys to develop that character and give her moments to truly shine?

Adil El Arbi:

For us, in the attempt to make a complete movie about basically that decade of the Syrian Civil War and ISIS and its rise, it was very important to have that character of Norwich symbolize for us what all the women went through. The women of Aka, the women of Mosul as well, and the Yazidi women. All the women were basically enslaved by this terrorist organization. She represents the women of that area, where all of a sudden a bunch of guys from another country – from a western country – come to them to tell them how to be. How to dress. How to think and how to be in their religion, while they’re just the victims of that place. And for us, for me, also naming her No, which means light in Arabic, is a big contrast against the darkness of ISIS.

It was very important for me to make this really strong character that is doing everything to survive. And she is an inspiring person. I hope that all the women in Syria and Iraq who escaped ISIS, survived ICE and that they recognize themselves. In fact, there were some girls in a refugee camp in Beirut who saw the movie and they said it really reminded them of what they went through. And it’s really like the fight against everything that it’s toxic about masculinity and about men trying to enslave in their minds the weakest members of society you could say. And she symbolizes that strength. She’s one for us, mainly one she together with the mom is our strongest character and is an inspiring person.

Glen Dower:

I love their stories. Now, I grew up not very religious due to growing up during The Troubles in Ireland, but for you guys, you maintain the respect for Muslim Religion of course. One line that struck me was about Jamal’s friend, they were speaking in secret and he thanked Allah for his skill of mending motorbikes, for some Westerners would think, ‘No, you do it yourself’. And when I arrived in Abu Dhabi for the first time I had a colleague and she would say to me, ‘I’ll get this for you tomorrow…inshallah.’ And I would think ‘You want to send me an email by the grace of God? Just press Send’. But it’s that sort of culture, that is everything is in God’s name. Was it important to you to keep those finer details of motivation for the characters? Their actions are for the grace of Allah.

Adil El Arbi:

Yeah, because besides the religious aspect is also, like you said, it’s a very cultural aspect. That’s basically how we talk. I think that even Moroccans who might not necessarily be religious or even believe in God, they’re still going to say inshallah. And they might in their minds refer to the universe will decide if it happens. But that’s a really big part of it. And I think that we as Muslims, it was important to tell that story also from a Muslim perspective because a lot of those stories are not told from a Muslim perspective. It’s basically they say Islam extremism. That’s how simple it is. And in truth, that’s not what it is. So for us, it was important to show the mom and Noor praying and also the character of Kamal praying before he gets sucked into ISIS because ISIS for us is more like a gangster terrorist organization or mafia organization than a religious organization.

Glen Dower:

That’s an excellent point. Let’s talk about the cast very quickly. So Jamal, how did you find Aboubakr Bensaihi?

Bilall Fallah:

We know him from our previous movie Black that we made in 2015–16. And he’s from Molen Bay, he’s a rapper and he lived through this time. So he knew the subject matter very well. And it was also something like actually for every character, a very important story to tell. So having Abu Backer playing Kamal was the role was written for him. He wrote also all the lyrics. So we gave him the subject matter of a song and then he wrote the lyrics himself. He’s a great rapper. Yeah.

Glen Dower:

And how did you find Tara Abboud? Did you have her in mind as well for Noor?

Adil El Arbi:
 
No, we actually discovered that as we were doing castings for actresses in the Middle East. There was a list of people and right away her audition, she was great. She was exactly the character that we were looking for. Somebody that has this innocence and at the same time that strength. She did a lot of research as well. And obviously, she has a lot of people that experienced those things in Syria as it’s very close to the border, so it was just a discovery and was really perfect for the pod.

Glen Dower:

I think it’s cast so perfectly and it all comes through sometimes in an almost documentary feel, the acting is very naturalistic. And just before my time is up gentlemen, you might have noticed I’m a big Marvel Guy!

Adil El Arbi:

Alright! Marvel!

Glen Dower:

Can you just tell me what it’s like working on Ms. Marvel, which has been a personal favorite of mine?

Adil El Arbi:

Well, it was next-level shit!

Glen Dower:

Cool!

Adil El Arbi:

It was the craziest, we had a lot of fun because it was the opportunity to bring a new character to life and to discover Iman. And also they allowed us to do a very funky visual animation kind of thing.

Bilall Fallah:

I think it was cool to be allowed to do something that you had never seen before in the MCU, A kind of charming comic book, a wholesome feeling that was also very youthful. And yeah, I hope that maybe one day we get the chance to go back and just the opportunity to work with Kevin Feige was like the legend, the OG. Yeah, that’s cool. Big honor and very proud to be part of that world.

Glen Dower:

That’s awesome guys. Well, I really enjoyed Rebel and I enjoyed your episodes of Ms. Marvel immensely, and Bad Boys for Life was a ton of fun. Finally, I am on your side about Batgirl

Adil El Arbi:

Thank you.

Glen Dower:

The audience has always wanted it and I think we’ll see it. Plus, Michael Keaton is my guy. So the people are behind you. Gentlemen, thank you so much for your time.

Bilall Fallah/Adil El Arbi:

Thanks Glen…Bye

Rebel premiered as a Midnight Screening at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival and is currently screening in limited release in New York and Los Angeles.

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