Randa Ali is a filmmaker working between Egypt and the US. In 2024, her short film Mango, which explores loss and grief through a daughter-father relationship, premiered in the official competition of the 46th Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival. For her film Kingdom of Strangers (2022), she was awarded the ARRI Franz Weiser Award. The film also received Jury Awards at the Toronto Arab Film Festival, the Cairo International Shorts Film Festival, and Beirut Shorts. She is a graduate of UCLA's Directing MFA program, where she was awarded a full-ride scholarship for female filmmakers from the Arab world.

Your film Kingdom of Strangers (2022) was shot on the Pacific coast of LA. Why did you choose this setting?

The film was written and shot during the pandemic while I was living and studying film in Los Angeles. It was a time of deep isolation, and I struggled to connect with what felt like one of the coldest, most challenging cities I had ever encountered. The only place where I found some solace was the Pacific coast, where I was drawn to specific spots because they reminded me of the Mediterranean. From these feelings of longing and resentment, the idea of surviving in one place by pretending to be somewhere else was born. This concept unintentionally echoes how LA often pretends to be other places in films. The documentary Los Angeles Plays Itself by Thom Andersen is a great reference for that.

It explores themes of isolation, longing and remembrance. Could you elaborate on your thoughts behind that?

It was very important to me (though I'm not sure if I succeeded) to resist, or at least reveal, the tension between a sense of longing that can easily turn into manipulative and misguided nostalgia, and the desire to resist it and burst that bubble. I was trying to avoid romanticizing such heaviness. One example of this is when, after the characters in the film share their stories and poetry, their moment of reminiscence is abruptly interrupted by the reality that the Palestinian cannot even dream of returning, knowing that this right is denied to them.

What experiences and influences inspired you in the creation process?

The emotional compass and core of the film were closely aligned with the struggles I was facing at that time. However, many other influences and tragic events also shaped the film: the explosion in the port of Beirut, letters from prisons in Egypt, the death of Sarah Hegazy in exile, and certain passages from Elias Khoury’s Kingdom of Strangers. But the biggest influence was Palestine. As an Egyptian and an Arab, when I think of exile, Palestine is what first comes to mind. It’s through the Palestinian tragedy that I’ve come to truly understand the meaning of the word "exile". A great inspiration for the Palestinian character in the film, Yaffa, and her relationship to the sea was my dear friend and researcher Abdullah Al-Bayyari, whose family was forced out of the Mediterranean city of Yaffa during the Nakba and into exile in Amman. In one of Abdullah’s writings, he explored the depth of the occupation’s cruelty: it not only forced his family into exile away from home but also exiled them to a landlocked city, forever depriving them of the sea. That deprivation of the sea is a constant theme for Palestinians, whether separated from it by the apartheid wall surrounding the West Bank, the shooting of fishermen in Gaza seeking their daily bread, or the denial of the right to return for all Palestinians in the diaspora. When thinking of Egypt, I was also reminded of the ongoing destruction of our own Mediterranean, from the aggressive privatization of the coast to a city like Alexandria, bombarded with haphazard construction that has turned it into a city of fences and concrete, separating the sea from its inhabitants.

You mentioned Elias Khoury’s book Kingdom of Strangers. How did it influence your writing process and what were other sources for the script?

Naming the film Kingdom of Strangers pays homage to Elias Khoury’s book, which is close to my heart and has profoundly influenced my thoughts on exile and the stories we tell to preserve memories. This connection was especially important when writing the film, particularly the Nakba sequence, where I made it a priority to root everything in archival material, drawing from extensive research and listening to testimonies from Palestinians who were forced out of Yaffa in 1948. It was essential to me because the Palestinian narrative is so often questioned and dismissed. I am also grateful that Khoury gave us permission to use one of my favorite passages of the book in the film.

Most of the film is shot in black and white. What was your vision behind this choice?

It was a combination of intentionality and coincidence. During that time, I was taking a lot of black-and-white photographs, which may have influenced the decision to shoot the film in black and white. However, my cinematographer, Jackie Fang, and I also wanted to explore the idea that memories and the past are often depicted in black and white, while my film portrays the colors of reality—faded and deprived of life. In contrast, the past and its unreliable memories are shown in vivid colors (filmed in Cairo by our 2nd unit cinematographer Assem Hendawi), as we tend to exaggerate them from our present perspective. I also aimed to pay homage to classic Egyptian cinema from the 50s and 60s, both through the use of black and white and narration. Additionally, my cinematographer and I are both big fans of Wong Kar Wai, and Happy Together served as a significant visual inspiration. Our colorist, Nadia Khairat Gomez has also done an incredible job in giving life to these images that we created. 

Can you tell us more about your casting choices and the significance of the name Yaffa for one of the characters?

Yaffa is named after my friend Abdallah’s daughter, chosen as a symbolic means of returning to the city of his ancestors. For casting, it was essential to me that the actor playing this character is Palestinian, as her presence in the film serves as a means of archiving. I was fortunate to know Reem Jubran, an incredible filmmaker who wanted to help, knowing how challenging it would be to find actors during a time when logistical burdens were placed on the cast and crew to ensure everyone’s safety amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Reem, whose family are also Nakba survivors, contributed to sharpening the narrative and authenticating many of the stories with her own family’s memories, even in the smallest details. For instance, when the character mentions her grandfather seeing Oum Kulthum while in exile in Libya, that is actually Reem’s story. When the world is against you and refuses to acknowledge your trauma and history, all you can do is continue telling stories, with their smallest details, to remind others that you exist and that these atrocities did happen. Ali is played by Egyptian actor Hazem Madbouly, one of my favorite actors in LA. This is our second collaboration, and I was eager to keep working with him. Both, Reem and Hazem brought profound empathy and playfulness to the story, shaping the film into what it is today.

How does it feel to watch Kingdom of Strangers today?

Of course, I am consumed by thoughts of self-criticism, but this project remains the closest to my heart and perhaps the freest in terms of writing, filming, and editing. I also cherish it for being the most intimate of my sets. I was gifted with a crew of six and two exceptional actors, all of whom were incredible human beings and artists. On top of that we were making a film by the beach. It was a dream.

Your latest movie, Mango (2024), was in the official selection of the Clermont-Ferrand International Film Festival. It tells the story of Nadia, who struggles to mourn her estranged father and his mango tree. Would you say there is a common thread running through the films you’ve made so far?

It’s not necessarily intentional, but my films—even if they are works of fiction—stem from my own emotions, memories, and unresolved burdens that occupy me as an individual. I come from a place that is constantly changing without the consent of its inhabitants. It consumes me, because I don’t understand how we can preserve our sense of self and our history when our memories and spaces are constantly threatened with erasure.

Would you like to share why you left Egypt to work as a filmmaker in the US? 

I left Cairo in 2019, and the years leading up to that departure were marked by frustration and a deep sense of alienation, driven by a collective feeling of defeat following the 2011 uprising and the subsequent counterrevolution. I didn’t intend to leave for the sake of leaving; I felt stuck and unable to connect with the world around me. At the time, I was also working as a journalist, and it became increasingly difficult to navigate my role. In this moment of despair, I discovered that UCLA was offering a scholarship for Arab women filmmakers. Cinema has been my greatest love for as long as I can remember, even if my journey to it was longer than I expected. I applied and was accepted into the program, which was life-changing. For now, I continue to live in the US, but the stories I want to tell remain deeply rooted in Egypt. My last short film was shot in Cairo, and my next one will also take place there.

What are you currently working on?

I am currently developing a coming-of-age feature film that I am directing. The film Rock, Paper, Sea is set in Egypt in 2001 and is written by Menna Taher and produced by CATS Films and Sifsafa Collective. I have also started focusing on film education and most recently worked with elementary school students in Seattle to create short films centered around questions of social justice.