Miryam Ahmadi is an Egyptian director who made her directorial debut in 2014 with the series "Ana Asheqt," which stars Amir Karara, and she also collaborated with Haifa Wehbe on the series "Al-Harbaya" and directed "Lazem Aeesh" from "Ela Ana," starring Jamila Awad, Ahmed Khaled Saleh, and Naglaa Badr. Along with the recent series "Gawla Akhira" starring Ahmed El-Sakka, Miryam Ahmadi was also the brains behind the nine-episode "60 Daqeeqa," which starred Mahmoud Nasr, Sawsan Badr, and Yasmine Rais. Her latest project is "The Last Round" starring Ahmed El Sakka.

Miryam Ahmadi was Zeinab's guest on "Good Vibes Only" where they discusses her beginnings as a director, and the success of her latest show "The Last Round".

When and how did you know you wanted to be a director?

"I knew that wanted to be a director since I was very young. I used to live abroad, and you know when you are young, you try everything, so I’ve done sports, I was very good at swimming, I was very good at ice hockey, I’ve acted in theatre, I’ve done musical shows… and I was a very good reader and back then, [I read] Archie, an American comic, and I was connected somehow to the characters, Archie, Betsy and Veronica, and I remember I used to discuss their relation with my mom. Whenever I’ve done acting in school, I did not feel it was my thing. I was always attracted to the teacher or the choreographer who is directing us.

And I remember one day, I went home and I’ve done my own set up in my bedroom, I’ve built a tent out of blankets, and I got all the toys, the Barbies and the superhero toys from my brothers, and I created a situation between them and this situation turned to be a dialogue, and I got either my mom and one of my friends and after starting the dialogue, and the conversation takes place until it catches fire, but then I need to finish the story, but I do not have enough time because I have to go to bed by 9PM as I was young, and I finished the rest of the story in my mind, in my dreams, in my imagination. And it turned from toys to real people I know at a school. And the progress happened when I used to put a notebook in my bedroom with a pen and when I dream the story, I write it down.

And when I grew up, my mom invested more, more video tapes, recorded more movies and rented movies, and it became a daily thing that we have to watch movie, it became clear that this is what I want to do, I want to be part of this. When we started visiting Egypt, she took me to premieres and took me to Adel Emam movies, and when I grew up, I knew from that moment that I wanted to be a director.”

What have been the setbacks in your journey so far?

“I had lots of setback… I think being a female director is not easy, especially because of the perception people take that you are a female director, that you can’t do except a single genre, they limit female directors, I think right now after doing different genres, especially after I’ve done a mysterious one in “60 Minutes” and I’ve done a mix between action and drama, I think the perception of people is changing."

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How was your experience working as a director assistant? And when did you know it was the time to take the next step?

"Working as an assistant director helped me a lot, it actually helped me with the technicalities, with knowing how to deal with people, how to deal with the producer, how to deal with actors, how to direct actors, how to deal with the rest of the crew, as well as knowing different schools of directing because when you work as an AD, you work with more than one director so you get to know more than one school of directing.

You know the right time comes when you want to frame what you have in mind, there’s always an image that you have in mind, but you’ll never going to be a director unless you put the camera on and start recording and frame what you have in mind.

You do have your image but it’s still in your mind, you need to get it out, and to get it out you need to either put it on paper or you feel the script, there are two ways to be a director, either you write your own script, or you get offered a script that’s inspiring.

In my case, I was offered “Ana Asheqt” the series, which was an adaptation of Mohamed Mansi Qandil's book, I read the book and I loved it! I loved the fantasy part of it, and the script spoke to me, so I felt it was about time to put all the vision I had in mind in front of the camera and frame it, and I started directing."

How was that experience going into the first project for you?

"I’ve done second-unit directing before “Ana Asheqt”, when you’re directing as a second-unit director you’re still very responsible because you’re another director’s vision, but when you’re directing for the first time it’s like driving for the first time, so when you drive your car you have to be responsible for the people inside the car, and you’re responsible for the people outside the car as well, and the car might be hit and you get off-road, and you might drift, and in general it might be ok and it’s fine, you need to remind yourself each time that it’s fine if you drift it’s fine, you need to get back on the road.

I remember Guy Ritchie, he’s an English filmmaker, he once said in an interview, which was very interesting, he said that there are 2 worlds, the outside world, which is how people see you, and there’s the inside world which is yours, how you see yourself, or how you want people to see you, so when you’re behind the steering wheel driving your car and your first experience, especially in my experience I was very young, in my early 20s, it wasn’t easy, the car drifted, and I had to be back on the wheel, driving to the highway, because everyone is expecting me to be on the highway, but after the first experience and you look back to what you have done, you’re like “You know what? It’s fine to get hit by the car and you take the off-road instead of just looking to the highway, because you can be enjoying the ride itself". Looking back to “Ana Asheqt” now, I think it was different back then, it wasn’t very common to direct a show, especially because it was adapted from a show."

How important is it for you when choosing a project the kind of message you want to send?

“In both shows, either “Lazem Aesh” or “60 Minutes” I was trying to address all the tools to mirror or to spot a certain topic to society, and this is cinema. Cinema is a very powerful medium and tool that you can mirror and envision the social issues. In both shows, I was trying to address the tools to change the perception of some people towards either the disease or the psychological and complicated backgrounds. But this does not mean this is how I choose the projects, I mean I don’t believe in messages at the time. I believe more in the feeling and engaging with the characters in the story. When I read a certain script and an idea, and I get attracted to the characters and their backgrounds, and I start thinking and dreaming of them at night, so I think I can add more to the characters and the background and the story. I think it is not about the message, it is more about how I feel about the story and the characters.”

How much of you goes into your work?

“I think if it is not reflecting in a direct way, somehow it is reflecting on the experiences I have been through. The hopes, the traumas, the dreams, I have experienced, I still need to experience, I think a lot of me goes into my work.”

What do you want to do next? And what kind of genres do you want to head toward?

"I have done thrillers, and I love thrillers and mysterious genres, I actually love crime-comedy, and I’m looking forward to a crime-comedy script that I can direct, I like social drama, and I like sports genre as well."

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“The Last Round”

What was it about “the last round” that attracted you to that particular project?

“The Last Round” is about redemption and memories, it’s about Yehia “Shageeh” and his road to redemption, how can he get over feeling guilty, and gain back the trust and belief of his daughter, and Tambi the trainer who tries to also get over his guilt and loss. I think it’s about a bunch of characters after the death of a person that related somehow to each one of them, the relationship with their past, and their future.

The memories are very common between each character of them, between the dad Dr. Nour el din, played by Roshdy Al Shamy, and Ahmed El Sakka, who got early dementia, as well as Tambi who’s trying to get back his son, and his struggles with the guilt of the past. I think it’s about redemption and memories."

How was the casting process?

“This project was offered by me by the producer that I respect very much and that I worked with him before in “60 minutes”. It was a sports genre and Ahmed El Sakka was already on board so I got so excited because working with Ahmed El Sakka gets back all the memories, gets the new Egyptian cinema like in “Al Jazeera,” “Tito,” “Ibrahim El Abyad”. I was very excited working with him.

Asmaa Abulyazeid actually was already there… Aly Sobhy I wanted him from the start but not in this role, and then Ashraf Abdel Bakyi’s [role] was not written like this, he was more of a trainer, and after developing the scripts with the scriptwriter. I did not want him to be a stereotype trainer like the one we witnessed. I wanted him to be more like Christian Bale in “The Fighter”, so he was out of the box… Roshdy El Shamy is a joker, you can put him in any role and he can nail it. I wanted him from the very beginning, and I have to credit this to him, that Dr. Noureldine, the character he played, it was not written as it was at all. We worked with Dr. Salma Habib, she is a psychiatrist and we have done lots of research.”

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Did you feel any pressure while making “The Last Round” Since it’s the first series about MMA?

"Mixed martial arts has been booming in the Middle East, so it was very stressful because you need to be up to scale to what the real game is and how people perceive it.

What was the most challenging thing that happened in the production of “The Last Round”?

"The real challenge was taking Ahmed El Sakka as a megastar in a totally different direction than what he used to do, as well as, it was the first MMA show, and most of the sports genres even abroad, they were more of comedies like “Ted Lasso” and other TV shows, but this one was serious."

Did you have any favorite scenes in “The Last Round”?

"The scene between Yehia and Alia in the first episode, the scene of Yehia putting his face in the water, and the scene between Alia and Yehia in episode five when he told her by mistake that he loves her, and all of the scenes between Tambi and Shageeh and the level of emotion between Dr. Nour el din and Yehia his son, it was very sensual and emotional. I also love Shabaka and his mom's scenes."

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What was the dynamic like with the cast?

"It was lots of testosterone, imagine a female in boys' club, it’s exactly that, because Asmaa Abulyazeid, she had very few scenes compared to the rest of the characters, they were all men and most of them were either in training scenes or fighting scenes, but it was a fun ride."

What can we expect next?

“I am relaxing, I am enjoying the feedback, I am still searching, I’m reading. If there’s a character or a script that touched me, I will be running after it.”

What advice would you give the younger generation?

“Believe in yourself, and get what you have in mind out. Share it with someone and put the camera on roll the camera and frame what you have in mind, you are gonna be a director.”

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