Cheers for Tears

Set in the Kurdish regions of northern Iraq, Firmiski Bexal (Bekhal's Tears), the first Kurdish film to be shot in the trouble-torn country after the American invasion, touched the hearts of viewers around the world. The central protagonist of the film, Ozzie Aziz, who was in Dubai for a special screening of the film, tells Suchitra Bajpai Chaudhary how her challenging debut role changed her perspective on life.

Before she watched soldiers shoot a man on the streets of Northern Iraq, before she saw a suicide bomber very nearly blow himself up, before she realised how a part of the world was subsisting on the bare necessities of life Ozzie Aziz was just a normal Madonna-wannabe club singer doing gigs in the US.

And then, last year, she got to play the lead role in the Kurdish film, Firmiski Bexal (Bekhal's Tears). She spent a month shooting a film in a language she did not speak, playing a victim of abuse, in a beautiful but war-torn country, among people who had a violent feud with her own bloodline.

"The more I travel and see stuff like (what I had seen in Iraq), the more it changes me as a person. It made me look at the world in a different way. (The Iraqis) have real problems, and (yet) they have smiles on their faces," says Ozzie, an ethnic Turk.

Brought up in London, Ozzie performed on London's stages as a teen, did shows on Broadway, then moved on to modelling, singing and acting gigs around the world before her exquisite voice and talent for music captivated the bosses at Bongiovi and Zone Entertainment, a record company founded by rocker Jon Bon Jovi's brother, Tony.

She was sponsored to the US sometime in 2000 and her first single, Let Me Be, was released to clubs in January. (It is currently doing fairly well on the US pop charts.)

Then, sometime last year, US-based Kurdish director Lauand Omar offered her the role of the protagonist in a low-budget indie film, Bekhal's Tears, which was screened at the recently concluded Emirates Film Competition early this month.

Ozzie and Omar were in Dubai for the screening and took time off to speak with Friday.

"(The film) gave me such a different perspective on life ... it was quite unlike the one I experienced in the US," says Ozzie. "Now if I meet a woman who so much as complains about her chipped nail, I will be ready to punch her," she says.

There were many reasons why Firmiski Bexal merited a special screening at the Emirates Film Competition. It was the first Kurdish film to be screened in the Arab world and the first film to be shot entirely in a village in Northern Iraq since the American invasion.

In war-ravaged Iraq, where human rights violation has become the norm rather than the exception, it takes courage to become the first director to shoot a feature film in 25 days that questions draconian social practices such as abuse of women and violation of their basic rights.

Ozzie plays Bekhal, a quiet, diminutive Kurdish village belle, who becomes a victim of abuse but nevertheless stands up for her rights, in this upbeat optimistic Kurdish film, the first of its genre in post-Saddam Iraq.

The movie has already won rave reviews in the Kurdish regions of Iraq, the US and several other countries where it has been screened.

It is being termed as a path-breaking film that compels the younger generation in Iraq to question their social structure and seek a change for the better.

The film is partly sponsored by the regional Kurdish government.

A study in contrast
In real life, Ozzie, a Florida-based Turkish-Cypriot singer-dancer and actress is a far cry from Bekhal. Smart and vivacious, this nightclub singer says her love for music, dance, rhythm and acting are an amalgamation of the creative genes she inherited from her musician father and fashion designer mother.

"My parents moved to London from Cyprus (the Turkish side) a couple of years before I was born," she says.

Unlike her screen character Bekhal who had a tough life and had to plead with her family to allow her get a good education, Ozzie had a very protected childhood and dreamed of a bright future for herself.

"I had worked out what I wanted to be - a singer, dancer and an actress - from the age of 5 when I began performing on stage," says Ozzie.

Her father, Ozzay Aziz, was a musician in the army. "He is such a gifted person ... Give him any musical instrument from any part of the world and he will play it effortlessly," she says.

The talent rubbed off on little Ozzie and by the age of 5 she was playing the piano. "At around the same time, I began taking dance lessons at a dance school,? she adds.

"As I grew up, my thoughts about what I had to do for a living began to get clearer ... and I took a degree in creative arts - dance, drama, acting and choreography - from Manchester University."

She also did a two-year drama Foundation Course from Lewisham College. "This course was better than the degree course as it taught me practical stuff about acting while the other was more on technical aspects," she says.

Ozzie loved being a singer, a dancer and an actress, so when it came to choosing one of them as a career, she found it difficult. "It still is," she says.

"But Hollywood put me off as there is a lot of pretentiousness within the acting community ... I was doing so many things - modelling, dancing, singing ... but I had to choose just one (so) I chose music," she says.

A difficult decision

It was music that brought Omar and Ozzie together. "I met Omar in Mexico and we became great friends. He directed many of my music videos, including Let Me Be, and has written most of my songs. He is my closest friend,? says Ozzie, narrating the dramatic turn of events that eventually made her decide on acting in Bekhal's Tears.

Omar was looking for a Kurdish girl to act in the film but couldn't find any because no Kurdish parent wanted his/her daughter to enact that role. Besides, there were hardly any experienced professional actresses
in the region.

"Omar had a real problem. We were (discussing the idea), offering opinions ... I was reading the script, but it never occurred to me that I could play the role ... until my grandmother suggested it to me. ?Why don't you go out and do it, Ozzie?' she said."

That set her thinking. She knew that portraying the role of Bekhal would not be easy. But never one to shy away from challenges, she decided to get to work on it. "Omar was such a good friend and I wanted to do the best for him," she says.

Due to safety concerns, the film was scheduled to be shot in just 25 days.

"We were staying under tight security in a house in Erbil that belonged to Omar's friend whose father was a minister," recalls Ozzie.

All day they spent shooting in a tiny village belonging to the Khazan family, which had 40 members living together. But by nightfall, the crew returned to their safe environs.

"There was no time for rehearsals. I had just 10 days to learn Kurdish, a language (that was quite alien to me). I speak Turkish fluently, but Kurdish was unlike Turkish."

Since she had very few days to pick up the language, Ozzie decided to give up trying to understand the language and instead concentrated on learning the correct pronunciation of words.

"I would get someone who knew the language to read me a sentence from the dialogue. I would then write that down phonetically in English with the meaning of the sentence just underneath it. We were filming a couple of scenes a day and in some of the scenes I had really long pieces of dialogue to deliver.

"I would memorise the lines a day before the shoot and would get Awara Xan (a well-known Kurdish actress), who was playing my mother in the film, to deliver the dialogue with the right emotions. I must say that being a singer and knowing music really helped me here."

Ozzie paid particular attention to the way Xan delivered a piece of dialogue - how she varied her pitch, the syllables she stressed, the places she paused, etc. Ozzie then learnt the dialogue by rote and reproduced it with the right emotions.

"I must say that even today, I need English subtitles to understand the dialogues I delivered," she laughs. But mouthing dialogues in a foreign tongue was only one element of the film which changed her life.

Changing a mindset

"Some people in the crew didn't like the fact that a non-Kurdish girl was the heroine of the film. The hostility was very intense. It was like people around me were waiting for me to fail."

All this stress started to take a toll on her. "Gradually I began to feel something was wrong with me. I seriously began to question myself and everything that I believed in ..."

She realised that to get into the role of the Kurdish girl, she had to change her very thinking. "I realised I had to completely surrender my ego. I told myself, 'I am not here for me, I am here to change the mindset of people and I need to do everything to make them accept me'.

"I had to forget that I was Ozzie the singer from Florida and had to become Bekhal to be able to win the approval (of the people of the region)."

She wanted them to accept her "because I cared for Bekhal and so many other girls like her. I wanted to get the message across and their hostility made me work that much harder".

But once she started shooting and a section of the crew realised her sincerity towards the project, the ice melted and soon "we became brothers and sisters".

"I spent time in the tiny village from morning to night watching the body language of the villagers.

"I closely studied the women baking bread on an open oven, learnt to bake bread their way, pour water from the jug so the menfolk could wash their hands when they returned home, tended to sheep and goats, played with the children at the village ... I absorbed the whole ethos," says Ozzie, describing how she worked on portraying her character.

One feature of the region which truly shook her was the living conditions of the people. The standard of living was quite basic, she says.

"There were absolutely no luxuries, no electricity, even a modern toilet had to be assembled for us. Then one had to watch out for snakes and scorpions that were part of the landscape."

Another feature that totally changed her way of looking at the world was the fact that the local people, despite being surrounded by danger and adversity, were able to smile and laugh about even minor issues.

"I was so blown over by the warmth and hospitality of the villagers ... despite their adversity they could smile about the smallest thing. There was so much love and warmth.

"The villagers were so simple and sweet. Despite their abject poverty, they were ready to share their last piece of bread (with visitors). It gave me such a different perspective on life ..." she says.

The short stint in Iraq and enacting the role of a Kurd woman in the movie made her realise that "we have lost a lot of richness in the West.

"What is richness? Does it come with money? I suddenly saw how different life really was for people grappling with real survival problems. I learnt a lot."

For Ozzie, being a Turk was another issue she had to contend with. Her parents were wary of allowing her to shoot in the interiors of Northern Iraq, a Kurdish stronghold.

"I had no idea about the hostility between the Kurds and Turks," she says.

"My parents had brought me up in an atmosphere that taught me to respect all religions, without any racism or cultural biases. They feared things could turn out ugly for me if some people there found out I was Turkish. Also, of course, they wanted nothing unpleasant happening to me as I was their only child."

So, for many days, she concealed the truth from the villagers and never told them that she was a Turk "until I heard some villagers talking in Turkish.

"It was such a pleasant surprise for them to converse with me in Turkish and that opened up a lot of communication channels. The villagers were really nice, warm and hospitable", she says.

Bringing her own emotional resources to the role
Was it a challenge to portray emotions such as fear, outrage, anger, shame and self-respect among other things of a character that was light years away from the world and society she had worked and lived in?

Ozzie doesn't think so. "I think I can trace it all back to one of the first lessons I learnt at the drama school: ?Even if you have not suffered what the character you play has, you must have undergone a similar emotion in another situation. It could be sadness, grief, anger, happiness, abuse'."

Actors rely on that experience to replicate the required emotion when portraying a character. "That is what I did," says Ozzie.

"Moreover, living in that village, wearing Bekhal's clothes and surrounded by women in whom I could see what Bekhal underwent, I became that character and (found that) it was not difficult to (express) the emotions," she explains.

Notwithstanding the vast difference between the world of Bekhal and her own, Ozzie feels she can identify with the character, as there are underlying similarities.

"Bekhal was a rebel who stood up for herself. I have been a bit of a rebel too, ever since I was a child. I have always fought for whatever I wanted in my life. I carved my own identity and that is true for Bekhal too."

What makes Bekhal a strong and believable character is her background, says Ozzie. "She needed to be an ordinary girl who other women could relate to and at some stage when she transforms and grows into this role it is also something other women can identify with."

The movie, says Ozzie, shows women around the world that they too can be like Bekhal, no matter what their situation or challenge.

A rich tapestry of varying feedback

Response to the film has ranged from sharp criticism and plain anger to open admiration. "Every country reacted differently to the film," says Ozzie.

"In Kurdistan, where it was premiered, many viewers were absolutely angry. They came to us and said: 'How can you tell us how to live (our life) or treat our women? What idea do you have about our lives?' But I realised they were responding so angrily because the film had made an impact on them.

"We got great feedback after the screening at the Emirates Film Competition. There were a lot of Iraqi and Kurdish people and (they were all overcome with nostalgia). They thanked us for showing them the countryside and streets they grew up in."

Viewers in the West were amazed by the movie, she says. "We were wary and had no idea how the audience would (react to) a movie like this which had ethnic Kurdish clothes and was in a foreign language.

"Surprisingly, people loved it because we had depicted such a beautiful and green countryside. Until then, they had only seen ugly footage of Iraq. They were really intrigued to know that Iraq had such natural beauty.

"Usually people in the West have only seen the ugliest side of Middle East - the war, the violence, the kidnappings etc. They have never seen the passion, the energy and the spirit of the people here. Being here I felt these things keenly and I know others will feel this too,"
she says.

Some private screenings of the movie were also held in Europe and Australia.

A seven-minute documentary on the film is being aired three to four times a day on Al Gore's television channel, Current TV.

"I am really proud I did this film," says Ozzie, "proud that my best friend, Omar, managed to achieve so much on such a modest budget and proud to be part of something that is going to bring about some change in the mindset of the people. It has brought out my human side."

Incidentally, she sang the title song of Bekhal's Tears, entitled Habibte Bekhal.

"It was an uplifting experience singing in three different languages - English, Arabic and Kurdish - and the song has become popular in Northern Iraq. It has a mix of Western and Middle Eastern sounds".

Ozzie has her whole year planned for her. She returns to the US and will sing at the Winter Festival in Miami and then proceed on a tour to promote her solo album, Let Me Be. She is also working on the soundtrack of her next film, also to be written and directed by Lauand Omar.