IF YOU WERE GIVEN A SINGLE PIECE OF A4 PAPER AND A PEN, and asked to write a story, what would you write about? Would it be a memory of a better time; or one you are glad you have outgrown? A tale of love found, or lost, or one you are yet to experience? A journey of self-discovery fuelled by chance, but told with wit and shaped by wisdom? Or a quirky observation that perhaps only you would notice? That is the power of the empty page. It can be nothing, but it also can be anything.
“Storytelling is contagious,” says Fatima Al-Banawi, “the moment someone shares a story, you are encouraged to share yours. It has a way of unlocking something in people, and I find that fascinating.” The Saudi actress, author and filmmaker is sat across a small café table, her posture is impeccable, her striking blue eyes holding your gaze, her words so carefully chosen yet delivered with a natural eloquence. For the better part of the past decade Al-Banawi has been encouraging, collecting and curating the stories of others, and using her brand of insightful nuance to help give Saudis a voice; be it through her art projects, the acting roles she accepts, or the feature films and TV series that she writes.
We are in the House Of Wisdom—the impressively modern library and culture hub in Sharjah, UAE. It’s a name that I joke, I don’t have the prerequisite requirements to enter, but, at just 35-years-old, Al-Banawi has accumulated enough wisdom for the both of us.
Al-Banawi is not your typical multi-hyphenate. In fact, she would probably wince at the term considering how wide its definition has been cast in recent years to include anyone with multiple social media accounts and a byline credit in a short film—but she doesn’t seem like the judgey type.
She studied Psychology at Effat University in her hometown of Jeddah, before topping her education up with a Masters from Harvard University in Theological Studies focusing on women, gender and Islamic studies. She first burst into the public consciousness following her outstanding acting debut in Barakah Meets Barakah (2016), playing the protagonist, Bibi, in the Jeddah-based romantic comedy about two Saudis from different social classes who fall in love but are thwarted by society’s strict rules on dating. The film was selected as Saudi’s official entry to the 2016 Oscars for Best Foreign Film, and a constant stream of film roles since [notably in Doubt (2000), Route 10 (2022) and Alhamour H.A. (2023)] have helped her star grow brighter. However, during that time Al-Banawi has also demonstrated some serious talent for nuanced storytelling as a writer, producer and director. Often all three at the same time.
It’s mid-morning and conversation is flowing, ebbing from anecdote to analysis. She is modestly dressed (insisting on respectfully covering her shoulders) and wearing very little make-up considering she is midway through the accompanying Esquire photoshoot. The team opting to allow her natural beauty and sharp, petite features to come to the fore. More than once we have to check ourselves for talking too loudly, too excitedly. This is a library, after all.
The only two items on the table are a book and a pen. The pen, a Montblanc Meisterstück. The book, The Other Story, by Fatima Al-Banawi.
AL-BANAWI HAS BEEN ON THE PATH of telling that ‘Other Story’ for a long time. The seeds were sown from her time in Jeddah being involved in theatre workshops with a slant toward social-impact, but where it really began to germinate was during her time at Harvard and, in particular, studying under the renowned Professor Leila Ahmed. “She was someone who would fundamentally change my life,” explains Al-Banawai.
“I had assumed that we would spend lessons learning about history and theory from dusty textbooks, so I was shocked that she would teach her classes via storytelling, not books. We would spend hours just talking, discussing and trading stories. We’d touch on theory, character, narrative, prejudice, representation and everything in between.” Upon graduating, Al-Banawi admits despite having spent two years studying, there were two main things she took away from the experience. The first was a firm understanding of the power of storytelling, and the second was a poignant piece of advice from that same professor.
Being a talented and driven Saudi woman with a newly-minted Harvard degree, Al-Banawi had no shortage of job offers to go back home to. Government work, NGOs and fast-climbing corporate opportunities, all were very viable options. “I told my professor about them, and she remarked at what a fortunate position I was in, and how lucky I was to be Saudi and a woman,” Al-Banawi says. “She told me that if I went back and took one of these jobs then she was sure I would be very successful, and lead a good life. But she also said that I also had the choice to go back home and use my time to create something that didn’t exist yet, and if I did that then, ‘chapeau’,” recalls Al-Banawi theatrically lifting an imaginary hat off her head, as a sign of respect. “That one statement changed everything for me.”
Shortly after returning to Jeddah, Al-Banawi was somewhat unexpectedly cast in Barakah Meets Barakah. The film’s subject matter seemed rather fitting. “My studies were about representation of Arab identity and women in contemporary literature and film, and so I was looking at ways where my love of storytelling, my studies could make a social impact,” she explains. But while she was busy working on her feature film debut, that idea of ‘creating something that didn’t exist yet’ continued to bounce around her head. Her education had taught her that the historical scope of character psychology was vast and well documented, but she was more intrigued by contemporary issues. Issues that had a tangible impact on her life. Issues of representation or, more accurately, misrepresentation. Issues that were closer to home—literally.
“After I moved back, I felt that the soul of the city was there, but perhaps it wasn’t being seen. I wanted to know what was driving the people of modern day Jeddah, and the best way to find that was to allow its people to share their own stories without an intermediary,” Al-Banawi explains. Before continuing, it’s worth reiterating that this was back in 2015, when Saudi Arabia was very different from what it is today nearly a decade later. Public spaces in Jeddah were significantly less vibrant and not places that encouraged open expression and dialogue. Al-Banawi’s idea became The Other Story Project.
“The idea was to create a method for people to write down a story on paper. They could write whatever they wanted; no editing; no filter; just their own thoughts,” Al-Banawi explains. That method was to set up a small, portable booth, presenting passersby with a single piece of paper, a pen, and the shield of anonymity. She would set it up everywhere she went: small companies, bazaars, shopping malls, university campuses, areas in the historic old town. The original intention was for the project to last a few months, but such was its vibrancy that it continued for almost four years, accumulating more than 5,000 submissions from all walks of Jeddawi life – students, architects, baristas, widows, fishermen—each sharing a personal story helped paint a portrait of Saudi society at its most intimate, ranging from angry screeds to heartfelt confessions to wry meditations on life, love, family and identity. Every one handwritten. Every one anonymous.
Years later, a carefully curation of these stories is what is published in Al-Banawi’s book. It displays the original, handwritten submissions accompanied by a sociological commentary of that period of time (2015-2018) in Jeddah’s history, in both Arabic and English.
However, as the consummate storyteller, Al-Banawi has continued to use the submissions to remarkable effect by setting up a performing arts element to The Other Story project, with many of the tales packaged into art productions she would develop and travel around the world sharing. These real-life stories allowing her to showcase a human picture of her home in places as far flung as Buenos Aires, Paris and Tokyo, but also closer to home including the Madinah Art Center and Athr Gallery in Saudi Arabia, and the Sharjah Film Platform in the UAE.
FOR AL-BANAWI, THE MERE SUGGESTION of resting on her laurels is laughable. We know this, as it was literally her reaction when I clumsily observed that she seems like someone who “prefers to keep busy”. Considering that she is still only 35, the scope of her body of work is remarkable. A self-confessed workaholic, she is a woman who thrives with a lot on her plate, and shows no signs of slowing down.
Case in point, her new film Basma drops on Netflix this month, and it will come as little surprise that it is a full bells-and-whistles Al-Banawi production. Not only does she star as the title character, but she also wrote the script, as well produced and directed the film. When asked why she chose to take on the full filmmaking quartet of duties (usually accustomed to industry veterans), she pauses before answering with uncharacteristic frankness.
“Sometimes, when you are trying to create something different you just need to back yourself, and your judgement,” she says bluntly. “In the process of filmmaking, there is usually an element of people pleasing, and sometimes that can comes to the detriment of the end product. Sure, compromising is part of any project but, on Basma—with me being the writer, director and producer—I got to choose where the compromises were made. I was like, you know what? Thank you very much, but put the whole cake on my plate and I’m going to devour it.”
Al-Banawi has been working on Basma for the past several years, and despite its plot being about a young Saudi woman returning to Jeddah after studying abroad, only to learn that her family has been shielding her from difficult truths, she plays down that it is an autobiographical tale. “It’s fiction,” she says, “but my work is always inspired by either personal experiences or stories shared by my family and friends.” This makes perfect sense from someone who, time and time again, has showcased her ability to listen and be empathetic to other people’s stories, but also someone who has learned how to look beyond a story’s context and into the psychology of it.
“If you consider who a story belongs to, a big chunk of that is the audience,” she says. “You can tell a story to someone, but the moment they receive it, it can take on a whole new dimension. The same story can mean something completely different to someone else, so, in essence, it is no longer just yours. It is bigger than that.”
Following that logic, does she see storytelling as an artform? “Absolutely,” Al-Banawi says without hesitation. “How we choose to tell it; what we choose to mention or omit; who we tell it to and when—these are all individual considerations made to impact the telling of a story, which in a way makes it an art. I’m not saying that a story needs to have an audience to make it art, but I do believe that art develops, or becomes complete the moment that it has an audience.”
Before we leave, I ask which of the 5,000 entries compiled by The Other Story project left the biggest mark in the least amount of words. “There was one that was just two lines,” she says, “it read: ‘I met someone, and I thought that he was my soul mate for life. But his family didn’t agree.’ That was it, and what I find fascinating about it is that people have such a emotional reaction to how blunt it is. It is a story that is over before it even begins.”
Photography by Amer Mohamad / Styling by Seher Khan / Hair by Maggie Semaan / Make-up by Irina Kuzmina / Produced by Steff Hawker / Talent Management by Mad Solutions / Location: House Of Wisdom, Sharjah