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Sand Storm (2016), originally titled Sufat Chol, tells the story of Jalila and Layla, mother and daughter who must reconcile their desires and dispositions to the rigid customs of the Beduoin traditions. The film is set in southern Israel and opens with Jalila uncomfortably welcoming her husband’s second wife into their family. Her pride and stiff lip make that especially difficult. During the celebrations, she discovers her daughter – who initially has a very good relationship with her father – Layla’s secret relationship with a boy from college. At first, Jalila’s subsequent cold-shoulder treatment of her daughter appalls the audience. However, as the movie goes on, Jalila transforms from a seemingly bitter and old-fashioned woman into Layla’s sole advocate. In return, Layla comes to appreciate the solidarity that comes from female relationships. This is a film about choices that must be made when there are no easy, happy-ending choices. This is also a film about two women growing closer together and learning to understand the other’s wants and desires for change, within a culture that doesn’t treat disruption kindly.

Quick context for the Beduoins: the Beduoins are an Arab seminomadic group, descended from nomads. Their name means “desert dwellers” in Arabic, which is fitting, because they prefer to live in the open desert. Beduoins mainly live in the Arabian and Syrian deserts, the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt, and the Sahara Desert of North Africa. There are Beduoin communities in many countries, including Egypt, Israel, and Jordan. They are traditionally divided into tribes or clans, and share a common culture of herding camels and goats. While many Bedouins have abandoned their nomadic and tribal traditions for modern urban lifestyle, they retain traditional Bedouin culture. The Beduoins rely on extensive kinship networks, which provide them with community support and the basic necessities for survival. Such networks have traditionally served to ensure the safety of families, to protect their property and determine a hierarchy of loyalties. Disputes are settled, interests are pursued, and justice and order are maintained by means of this frame, according to an ethic of self-help and collective responsibility. Traditional systems of justice dispensation in Beduoin society typically revolved around strong honor codes. Ird is the Beduoin honor code for women: a woman is born with her ird intact, but it’s different from virginity, as it is emotional and conceptual. Once lost, ird cannot be regained. Sharaf is the general Beduoin honor code for men. It can be acquired, augmented, lost, and regained. Sharaf involves protection of the ird of the women of the family, protection of property, and maintenance of the honor of the tribe and/or village. Hamasa (courage/bravery) is closely linked to sharaf. Bravery indicates the willingness to defend one’s tribe and is closely related to muruwa (manliness).

Sand Storm premiered for the first time, ever, at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, at Park City’s iconic Egyptian Theatre, on Monday, January 25. Elite Zexer, the film’s writer-director, actually finished editing Sand Storm merely two weeks before the premiere. After the film concluded, and the lights came back on in the theater, Zexer, Lamis Ammar (who played role of Layla), and a handful of the film’s production and editing crew took the stage, to field questions from the applauding audience.

Emcee: How did you come to be interested in these women, these villages, and their interesting background?

Elite Zexer: My mother does a lot of things. Ten year ago, she started shooting a Beduoin village, and part of what she was shooting was Beduoin women. One day she told me I had to come visit, she [had become] very, very close with [the women]. I said, “Yes,” because I never said no to my mother. At that time, I never anticipated that this would turn into this amazing experience. I was going with her for a quite a while, and I became attached to these women as well. After a few months, I went through a very meaningful experience for me. I escorted an 18-year-old in her wedding. She had a secret affair with a man from university and it was found out by her family and her family had forced her to give up university, took away her cellphone, locked her up in the house, and told her she had to marry someone she had never met before. She was very, very close with her father and her mother, so she decided that she would marry the man they had [chosen] for her. In the wedding – I was with her – like in the last moment like in my film, she was standing in her new house that her husband had built for her. I was standing with her, and she could hear the sounds of the parade of the men that were coming to the bedroom, and we know she’s going to meet the groom for the first time in just a few seconds, and she seemed so tense and nervous. I can’t explain how she looks like, and she turned to me, and said “For my daughter, things are going to be different.” And that was the moment I knew I needed to – had to – make a film about this. And now about eight years later, here we are. That’s how long it took.

Audience member: Can you talk about how long this shoot was? What were some logistical challenges were in making the movie?

EZ: The shoot [took] about four and a half weeks. We shot it on location in four different villages. I think what was most challenging for me personally [was] obviously the language challenges, shooting on location, dealing with everything that can happen. That was challenging and beneficial at the same time, because magic happens when you don’t plan on something, when something comes on screen that’s real. What was most challenging was that [the Beduoin culture is] not my culture and I wanted to make it their perspective and their world and not my perspective. I wrote the script for four, five years and I rewrote the script it and rewrote and every time I would go and visit them, for four or five days, I would come in and say, “I just heard that sentence, that was completely wrong,” and I would rewrite the whole script until I could make it completely accurate to what they were feeling. I had to study the language; that was the second thing. I also wanted to see that I could actually do this, so I shot a short film before it started, and I screened it to the Beduoins to see how they would react. They took a copy of the DVD and screened it to the village for a quite a few weeks after. They loved it and asked me when the next one was coming.

AM: Which language did you write the script in?

EZ: Hebrew. It was translated by a Beduoin. Lamis [Ammar] and most of the cast are Arabs and they don’t speak Beduoin dialect; the same person translated the Arabic into Beduoin.

Emcee: Can you tell us about how you found the actors?

EZ: I knew from the beginning that I couldn’t get actual Beduoin women to play the role because they’re very, very traditional. I can’t shoot them and show them on-screen and have people around the world watch them. That would ruin their reputation and their families’. I knew I would have to take actors from less traditional families and backgrounds, so we started casting and meeting actors and people that have worked before. We went from north of Israel to south of Israel and cast for about a year. The mother [actress Ruba Blal] is the first one I saw, and the more I saw mothers, even outside of Israel, it became clear that no one else compared. I saw a lot of 18-year-olds and a lot of them are non-actors. The minute I saw [Lamis], I knew how special she was, and completely not what I wrote. I rewrote the script for her, really. The girls [who played Layla’s sisters] were quite a search, but the moment I brought them together, I saw a family and the sisters’ energy from the first day. That was the first moment I felt I saw a film.

AM: When the second wife said to Layla, “Don’t end up like me,” what did that mean?

EZ: She meant: “If you make too much trouble, you will end up the same way.” Usually there are reasons why [a woman] become a second wife. [She’s] been through something in [her] life that’s made [her] older than the regular age [she would have received] offers for first wife. She had a story quite similar to what [Layla] had and didn’t have good enough offers.

AM: There wasn’t a lot [in the movie] from the male perspective. Her father seemed like the voice for all men. When you showed it to the [Beduoin] men, how did they react to their portrayal on film?

EZ: I finished the film two weeks ago, so you guys are the first [to see the final product]. I did show [parts of Sand Storm and my short to] the Beduoins on set and they laughed the whole time. They thought it was the best comedy.

Lamis Ammar: There’s a lot of things in their culture. There are good things and bad things, like any other culture.

EZ: I realize that Suliman was the only man in here but I didn’t try to [use him as] a stereotype of a male character. I was trying to show something unique in their village, and that he is one type of person, that this is how he acts. I don’t think we can take him to represent all Bedouin men. I don’t think you can say that about any of the characters.

AM: [As a Beduoin], what happens to you if you don’t follow what the parents ask you to do?

EZ: The shame that the family endures. The family loses its position in the village. If [Layla] would have left [and run away with her boyfriend at the end of the film], her sisters would not get marriage offers and the family would completely lose its position in the tribe. They would have a really hard time continuing their lives. [Layla] would never be able to see the family again. Everything in the culture is [about] the family. Family is the highest value. Once you stay [in the village], you know you’re safe. Your mother is right there, she helps you with your children. If you have financial problems, you have help. If you leave that [environment], it’s really hard to find your [own] way. Running away is really hard. The family is a community. Family is everything.

AM: Is it common for Beduoin men to have second wives?

EZ: I don’t know the percentage, but, yes, many Bedouin men have second wives. It’s a very common situation.

AM: Why does the second wife have such a nicer home and honeymoon?

EZ: When you set up the house for the first wife, you don’t have much money, because you just started life. But as life goes on, you have more money and more ways to build a nice house. The second wife gets a much better house; you don’t spend that money redecorating the first wife’s house. That’s the way it is.

AM: What is the objective for the film beyond the festival here?

Haim Mecklberg (producer): What we hope to do is generate some thought about [the Beduoins]. The issues within the tribe [are] really hard to support. [We didn’t want] to take a position, just to show the way [life] is, and to make you think about it. [The film’s] perspective is that it was so beautiful. We just try to share it with you and whatever [thoughts] you come out of it [with], it’s fine with us.

AM: Where do you intend to distribute the film?

HM: We tend to show it worldwide.

AM: Do Beduoin women normally go onto the university and study? What do they do with that degree?

EZ: They get jobs. It’s funny, but when I started writing the film, it was first generation of women going to university; it wasn’t that common. But today, it’s more common. Back then, men didn’t want women to study, because it was considered [inappropriate]. The men think, “Who knows what they’re studying, what they’re seeing, how they see the world?” But today, men want women to have degrees, because they realize women can have jobs and degrees. It’s [only been] a few years, but look at the change.