When Khalifa AlMarri is telling a story he covers a lot of ground. He likes to give things context, he likes to paint the picture. He is a natural film director—someone who notices details; someone who knows the power of those details; someone who knows that God is in those details.
“When I’m talking about something that I love—something that I’m passionate about—I tend to get hung up on all the little things,” says AlMarri with a self-realizing chuckle. He is in the middle of telling the story of Man Of The House, the first short film that AlMarri made (and wrote) about a young Qatari boy who is forced into adulthood having been left in circumstances where he has to look after his two young brothers. There’s a glint in his eye as he explains all the technical aspects of the shots, and how he cast his cousins to play the young kids, before casually dropping in: “of course, the twist is that one of the children is a zombie.”
It’s an unexpected pivot, but more importantly it was the first indication of the talent that AlMarri possessed. It was 2015, and the inaugural year of the Ajyal Film Festival—a Qatar film initiative designed to empower young filmmakers in the country.
AlMarri had never made a film before but encouraged by his friends he called the Doha Film Institute to see if he could submit a film. The submissions deadline had just passed, but they told him that if he had a project ready he could still submit it. “I told them that I was in the middle of filming something and it just needed just another week to complete it,” AlMarri recounts. “The truth was, I didn’t have anything! So now I had one week to write and make an entire film! So I did.”
The mysterious coming of age thriller, Man Of The House, was the outcome. It would win the festival’s Made in Qatar Award. Not bad for a week’s work.
Khalifa AlMarri is from a Bedouin family, and so the ties to the desert and traditional culture are strong, but not overbearing. Him and his siblings went to school in town, but during the holidays, while others may have travelled aboard, they would go back to the desert.
He always liked watching movies, but back in the days before streaming and On-Demand, he was restricted to what was being shown on terrestrial TV and bootleg DVDs that were available to buy from the local corner shops. “It’s actually through watching all these films that I learnt how to speak English,” he says, “but I never really thought it was something that I wanted to do.”
That spark took a little longer to ignite. The first ‘film’ AlMarri ever made was shot on a phone (“a Nokia N75 phone—a first generation flip phone with a video.” Details). He was in high school, and his Arabic language teacher tasked the class to go and create a Public Service Announcement about something school related.
“At the time I was playing around with some editing programs on my laptop, so I was keen to show off what I’d learnt,” he says. By his accounts the video was “so cringy” with “cheesy music,” but the teacher was very happy and screened it in front of the class. It made such an impact that afterwards all his fellow classmates rushed over to him, asking dozens of questions about how he made it. “That was the moment that lit the spark for me,” he says. Throughout his teenage years AlMarri continued his interest in editing and developing technical skills. For a while he thought about working in special effects, or video editing—but there was something deeper in him that he knew was there.
“I recently found that old PSA video I shot on the Nokia,” he says. “My wife wanted to see it, and after a lot of convincing we watched it. Looking at it now, it is really bad, but rather than being embarrassed when watching it, I was surprised by all the different technical elements that it had in it. There were over-the-shoulder-shots, and POV shots, and clever bits of editing.” Considering his age and that it was long before AlMarri would go on to study filmmaking and become an award-winning filmmaker, it was a hint that he saw things a little differently from others. Much like the way he had learned to speak English from watching those bootleg DVDs, what he was also subconsciously learning was the language of film, picking up on all the little details.
There is a Sliding Doors moment in AlMarri’s career. Following the Ajyal Film Festival success, unbeknown to AlMarri, word was getting around about a young Qatari filmmaker with an eye for detail. “Believe it or not, I nearly went into the military,” he says. “I got approached with a really good offer from them to come and work as a full-time director making content on behalf of the good work that they do, but after a lot of consideration I decided to go a different way.”
For a proud Qatari, it is a difficult decision to make, however, trusting his instincts AlMarri knew that there was perhaps a different way that he could help his country—focusing on a more creatively free path in joining the film and TV industry. A move that has delivered.
Olayan was AlMarri’s latest short film. Inspired by his understanding of the Bedouin community, it tells the story of a young boy who forms a bond with a new-born camel, who he calls Olayan. When the camel is later sold to market, the boy embarks on a mission to rescue his friend. Returning to the Ajyal Festival in 2021, Olayan would win a hattrick of awards, including the Hilal Jury prize for Best Film. “I didn’t really expect to win because the majority of the jury who were voting were not from Qatar, and the story was a very Qatari one. For me, that made it even more special.”
In order to make a ‘very Qatari’ story, AlMarri made sure that the language and dialogue used was authentically Bedouin. He even cast another cousin—Saleh Salem AlMarri—as the boy in the lead role (who would win the Best Actor award at the same festival).
“I wanted to show the real language of the people,” he explains, “I used the genuine language of my tribe—insisting that all the actors spoke in the dialect. The hardest part was teaching some of the actors to speak in it, even though they were Qatari! Some of the words and phrases we use are different, and not getting it right would affect the impact of the whole story.”
Family and community are important drivers for AlMarri. One of his main motivations to continue to make films is the potential legacy that it will leave behind. Earlier this year, he became a father for the first time. Already a doting dad, he brought his eight-month-old son to a recent shoot of his, because he wanted to introduce him and to surround him with the Qatar film community.
“Whenever I see something that my father did when he was younger, even simple stuff, I feel so proud of him,” says Al Marri, “it just makes me think, how cool would it be to have my son be able to watch my old movies when he grows up!”
Another part of that legacy is the one that AlMarri is helping build in the nascent Qatar film industry. He is part of a community that is very much considered to be the first generation of local talent being given the opportunity to expand and explore storytelling from the peninsula.
For the Esquire Qatar photoshoot, the team meets and assembles on set at Katara Studios—a Doha-based full-service production studio—where AlMarri works as a director and producer on various film, TV and commercial projects. It is a place that he feels at home, a place that has given a platform for both himself, and the local industry, to grow.
“We have developed a really tight community of filmmakers here in Qatar,” he says. “We share a lot of advice and skills with each other, as we all know that only by moving forward together can we make the biggest impact.”
There is always a little apprehension in calling Qatar’s film output an ‘industry’, but it certainly has taken strides in creating a bedrock on which to build atop of. What is interesting about Khalifa AlMarri, is that despite only just turning 31 years old, he is a key creative player in both the past and future of Qatar’s story in film. He is already an example of success, drive, and nurturing natural talent, but as he presents new ideas (and scripts) that he hopes will develop into the country’s first fully-produced feature film, he aspires
to help lead the way to its future. It’s all in the details.
This article was originally published in Esquire Qatar – Autumn 2023 issue.
Photography by Greg Adamski / Styling by Nour Bou Ezz / Art Direction by Yehia Bedier / Hair & Grooming by Aldo Coppola / Make Up by Salima Aliani / Senior Production by Steff Hawker / Qatar Producer: Narges Raiss / Styling Assistant: Fernanda Tronco & Catherine Nicolas / Special thanks to Katata Studios