Amman-based writer and director Zain Duraie is in post-production on her debut feature Sink, a drama about the relationship between a mother and her teenage son who is coping with an undiagnosed mental illness.
Duraie says her ambition for the film is to “shed light on the stigma and silence surrounding mental illness in the Arab world”. She hopes to premiere it in one of the major festivals in 2025, having completed the shoot in Amman in early November. Sink reunites Duraie with producer Alaa Alasad of Tabi360, who produced her 2019 short Give Up The Ghost.
“We had a strict schedule, we needed to finish it in 22 days,” says Duraie, noting the challenges posed by a sub-$1m budget and finding suitable shooting locations around the city.
The project received backing from the Red Sea Fund, having been developed in Red Sea’s Lodge training programme in 2021, along with Doha Film Institute, Jordan Film Fund and the Royal Film Commission, and with a grant from the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture. Sink stars Palestinian actress Clara Khoury, Jordan’s Wissam Tobeileh and Jordanian actor Mohammad Nizar in his first lead role. Farouk Laaridh, whose credits include Kaouther Ben Hania’s Four Daughters, is the cinematographer.
Passionate about cinema since watching James Cameron’s Titanic at the age of 10, Duraie joined her school’s theatre group and, at 17, went on to study directing and screenwriting at Toronto Film School. She worked on several shorts and features after graduating, taking assistant roles on Palestinian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir’s features When I Saw You (2012) and Wajib (2017). She made her own first short Horizon in 2013 and began writing Sink in 2017 before taking a break to make Give Up The Ghost in 2019. That psychological drama competed in Venice’s Horizons shorts competition and won best Arab short at El Gouna.
“My ambition is to contribute to modern Jordanian cinema by telling personal stories rooted in societal pressures, while elevating narratives from my culture,” says Duraie. “My dream is to continue writing and directing for the rest of my life.”
Contact: Zain Duraie
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