Nesmahar Sayed quizzes out its young writer Neither Syrian nor Lebanese," Mariam Naoum, whose name strongly suggests such origin, says: "I am Egyptian." Before the release of Wahid Sifr (One Zero), which has been well received by critics and audiences alike, it was not a well-known name, either. The script certainly reveals a remarkable understanding of Egyptian society. "I may not belong to the working class," Naoum says, "but all through my life I have observed people of every kind and imagined how they live..." A 2000 graduate of the Film Institute, Naoum wrote one script before One Zero -- her graduation project -- but it was never produced. "It is called Al-Itr, Perfume -- nothing to do with Sèskind. When I was done I thought of the director Usama Fawzi," she elaborates, "but I did not know him and had no access to him." In 2004 she found a mutual friend who introduced her, Fawzi liked the script and asked for a few modifications, but did not go on to make it immediately. "He recommended me to Kamla Abu Zikri, telling her I was a good script writer. Yet it took three years for the film we started discussing to be produced." Al-Itr is nothing like One Zero, Naoum goes on to explain. "I wrote it while I was a student at the institute and the characters are very different. Besides, unlike One Zero, it's not 100-percent realistic. In it you can catch of whiff of mythology." Al-Itr was somewhat romantic, Naoum adds, reflecting the spirit of a student and a young woman who has not yet braved the thick of life. "Growing up and getting involved in personal and professional life changed me profoundly, and my eyes were no longer those of a dreaming girl. By 2005 I had developed a different kind of experience. And that is not to mention the changes that had taken place in society and on the street, which inevitably affected me too." Egyptians were no longer best recognised by their humour and their smiles. "Sadness, frustration, all kinds of things had affected people and you could tell from looking at them on the streets. There were no longer smiles on their faces." In One Zero, she says, there is a whole range of characters with different personalities and backgrounds but all suffer from suppression, all are persecuted or oppressed. That, she insists, is how the film conveys a message of tolerance, speaking of "how to accept the other whether they are good or bad. Each character has their reasons for being who and how they are." Her intention was for the viewer to sympathise with the characters, all of them, instead of judging them. Since the release of One Zero, Naoum has been reworking Al-Itr, an occasion to remember the time when she wrote it, aged 20. "I was very optimistic then," she muses. "Very optimistic." But it remains an essentially different script from One Zero and Naoum does not think there can be any comparison. "After all," she goes on, "if it had the same idea and/or the same treatment then I would be repeating myself. But it is different and I hope the audience will evaluate it for what it is, not compare it with my first script." Al-Itr, which she keeps coming back to, is a "mood film"; it tries to work through feelings. More generally it reflects her conviction that whoever chooses to write about human beings should look past surface appearances, fishing out the pertinent details. In this sense script writing takes not only time but a concerted effort of mind. It is the details that result in a script the audience can relate to, not the sweeping outlines. And that is how One Zero came about, too: Naoum took her time to write, rewrite and perfect the script with all the details, and only then did she start searching for the possibility of a production. "I am doing the same thing now with Al-Itr. After finishing the modifications that Fawzi requires, I will give it to him and start working on a third film." But only then, she adds: Naoum cannot work on two long features at the same time. Yet she is forced to take other jobs while writing her films, to make ends meet. "My ambition was to turn my hobby into my job, and I feel that is what I've been doing." Naoum refuses to work under pressure, out of the need for money; and her less creative work is a way to avoid having to do so. Among other things, she made a six-part documentary for Al-Jazeera about foreigners living in Arab countries, Arab Friends. She also translates cartoons to be dubbed in Arabic, and took part in the writing the first season of the children's programme Zaza w Gargir. Short feature films, however, she write for free. "I wish the atmosphere was more helpful, allowing script writers and directors to take their time and work on their films rather than finishing them off under the pressure of deadlines to make a living," she says. "Speaking of which, the budget of Al-Itr may be equal to that of One Zero but being useless at maths I may be wrong. Al-Itr has fewer characters, but there are many journeys in it." It takes Naoum the duration of the interview to admit that, being the work of the same script writer, the two films might after all have something in common -- and that is concern with detail. "I rediscover myself when I watch my work on screen. And the one thing that is present in all of it, even my scripts for children, is this interest in the details. The details of people and their spirit are my foremost interest." A graduate of the Lycée Francais school in Heliopolis, Naoum is the daughter of the novelist Nabil Naoum and the jewelry designer Suzanne El-Masry, whose attention to detail -- a prerequisite in this kind of work -- she seems to have inherited. And that is partly why the African Cup was her topic of choice. "I sought a situation in which a wide cross section of Egyptians would be united," she declares, "the better to concentrate on the differences between them." By Nesmahar Sayed
