The Indiependent spoke to filmmaker, actor, and singer-songwriter Layla Kaylif, to celebrate the UK release of her latest flick, The Letter Writer (2024). We discussed her film, the journey from creation to distribution, and the intersection of language, music, and identity.
Indie: Let’s talk about this project, The Letter Writer. It must be a bit strange for you, because this project has been so long in the making. From 2015, when you won the filmmaker award from the IWC, and then making the film in 2018 and screening it at the Lebanese film festival, and only now getting the distributors. How has the space of that journey felt?
Layla Kaylif: “Well, I’ll tell you what it is good for, it teaches you life lessons; it teaches you patience, you know? I was really an impatient person as a young person, and to get kind of spiritual and philosophical on you, it’s insane, but it really develops this muscle, where you’re like, ‘Oh, I’m working on a project.’
So in that sense, it’s sort of like an appreciation, because you start to think of things metaphysically like, things will happen when they’re supposed to happen. I think that we live in such a material world: we’re so locked into this matrix, that it’s important, this idea that there’s something like an invisible force, whether you think about it in terms of physics, literally, or whether you think in terms of astrology, or religion, or whatever might be your thing. And so I kind of enjoy that more than anything, the idea that the stars align. It’s all very Shakespeare.
But on a real-world level, I mean, I’ve just struggled a lot. I’m very fortunate in the sense that I don’t financially depend on my art, my creative life, so it allows it to become a vocation for me. I’m a pretty difficult person, because, you see, I follow my muse. So sometimes, it just doesn’t happen—I can sense the door isn’t opening.
Also, I tend to be very slow creatively. So like, this idea for the story [of The Letter Writer] had been percolating in my head for years, even before I put pen to paper. Also, I had to go through a lot of situations where people came in and out, I had a producer attached and then they went away, so it’s sort of just an ongoing process. And actually, even after I won the IWC, I then rewrote the script: there’s like 50 rewrites, different actors—everything is different right up until the edit.”
Indie: Following on from that, having gone through that journey, how does it feel that people are going to be seeing the film now? What does that mean to you?
LK: “I mean, to be honest, I think that it’s important for the people who were involved in the actual project—you feel guilty, because people will call you, my actors, and ask, ‘is it coming out?’ But now I have to call them and say ‘it is! It’s coming out!’ My lead actor (Eslam Al Kawarit) has gone on and done other things now; I still have hopes for him. But then I feel like I’m that guy making empty promises: ‘No, you know, when it comes out, people will see you…’ It’s very hard to be an actor in the UAE, and he’s a Syrian living in the UAE. So that’s the main thing, to be honest… that’s the real reward.
Also, I’m quite resilient in the sense that, you want people to like it, but it’s fine if they don’t. I think it’s very subjective, and so if people enjoy the film, then I’m happy. The film is very subtle, in terms of its underlying messages, and you’re also working within extraordinary parameters in terms of self-censorship, and it’s very difficult to write.
But I always say this, and I’m not comparing myself to Shakespeare, but people forget that Shakespeare was writing in a police state. People forget that and it’s extraordinary, because Shakespeare had to veil everything. And I think having grown up in the culture I grew up in—in Britain—people have no idea what that’s really about, to live under censorship.
I was really lucky. So my first distribution deal fell through during COVID, and then we were going to do a cinema MENA release, and then I went through various ideas until Janson Media took it on. I got some positive responses after I did the London Breakthrough Strand, and they helped get it out to distributors. The general feedback was like, ‘yeah, this is a nice film’, and I had some where they were understanding the nuance, but they were like, ‘yeah, nobody is really going to want to watch this film. It’s a cute G rated movie.’
I think cinema from the Middle East is expected to be about war, about politics. I mean, obviously there is a political backdrop [in The Letter Writer], but I’m very inspired by European cinema like Il Postino (1996) and Cinema Paradiso (1988). Also Latin America—I liked the aesthetic, the culture. I spent a lot of time in Puerto Rico working on my music career, and I really connect with that culture. And that feels very much familiar to me.”
Indie: While we’re on the topic of culture and influences, there’s a quote in the movie that comes up a few times: “English is a stupid language, it only has one word for love.” For you, when approaching a filmmaking project, was the plan always to write an Arabic screenplay?
LK: “Ah, so big reveal: English is my first language, so I preferred to write in English. So my friend helped me translate it; she’s absolutely brilliant. Translation is interesting, because translation is also rewriting, and languages are containers for different ideas. And I think growing up I just preferred English, because the books I liked were in English, my mother is English, my older brother is bilingual… I speak Arabic. I haven’t mastered my Arabic, but I did translate my song ‘Hallelujah’ into Arabic. But because I studied Arabic, I kind of treat it like it’s a puzzle to me. I’ll sit with a dictionary and look up roots. It’s interesting you asked, because I have several other scripts ongoing, and I’m always like ‘should this be in Arabic or English?’ So, The Letter Writer was kind of like, you’re breeding all these chicks and then one hatches.
So I was working on another project which kind of ends up being a love story again—as you can tell, I’m really into love stories but it always has a spiritual foundation. It’s like love as a means to reunite with God or the divine, or like the intelligence of the heart, the idea that love is a means to expand your consciousness. So that was like, ‘would it work in English?’ I’ve also worked on a lot of things that I don’t know if they’ll see the light of day, in historical Arabic. I was thinking, what I’d really like to do is use old Arabic, in the sense of a dialect, a bit like what Mel Gibson did [in The Passion of the Christ, (2004)].
I would say I love Arabic. I really wish my Arabic was better. So yeah, I would say, The Letter Writer is like 30% English, right?” [The film features Arabic, English, Hindi, and Farsi].
Indie: For you, as someone whose background is in music, and as a musician, did that influence the way you wrote the story? In terms of thinking of letters as poetry and that concept?
LK: “Oh for sure. So basically how it works is, I started writing scripts like before I did anything. This was years and years ago, because I’m old, I literally found a script-formatting book and I was just inspired. I think, for me, it’s like a journal, because you create these characters. It’s healing in a way, because what you do is play it out—like every song is really about you. So Khalifa [the main character in The Letter Writer] is based on my Dad, right? But then also I’m like… ‘you’re not Khalifa, Dad, I’m Khalifa.’
So a song for me, is a little film. You’ve got a beginning, middle, and end with a resolution. So one’s 90 pages or whatever, one’s four verses, two choruses, and a middle eight.”
Indie: To end, I would love to hear your thoughts on, as you’ve said already, the nuance in The Letter Writer and how it subtly touches on different themes: family dynamics, colonialism, education. For you, what is the heart of the message you want audiences to take away with them?
LK: “We don’t need any more leaders, we just need love. And I mean love as a real thing, as a technology. That’s what we should be teaching if we want a curriculum. I’m a nerd, so I love listening to political discussions. But it’s all the same thing, people just come away polarised. So that’s the theme of my film, but to link into it: I will force myself to listen to someone when I despise what they’re saying. Like, I will force myself, I will sit and watch a film and rant, ‘it’s propaganda’, but I’ll also sit and say, ‘oh, they’ve made this film really well. This propaganda was done really well.’
It’s difficult, because not every culture is great. I grew up in a small town, really parochial, and I really had a lot of challenges in my own cultural space. At the end of the day, I say, well look, I’m half-English. In my soul, I’m very proud to be Arab, but I think it’s the Arab of my imagination.
My film, it’s a low-profile project, obviously Rosy [McEwen, who had her breakout in 2022 as the star of Blue Jean, dir. Georgia Oakley], we didn’t talk about Rosy. Yeah, so she hadn’t done anything, I found her picture online and was like, this is my Julie Christie, my English archetypal rose. I mean, I know she’s gone into more edgy content now, but I just saw her headshot, and she was great. She came over [to Dubai]… the whole experience was really lovely, everyone bonded. It sounds cheesy but it was actually a pain-free zone in terms of that community.”
Interview and words by Rehana Nurmahi
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