Funerals, as they say, are for the living. I don’t much care what happens to my remains or what form any kinds of services take, because I won’t be there. The purpose is the comfort of those left behind. I would want them to do whatever suits them. But this is an almost romantically uncomplicated way to look at it. It assumes there won’t be differences of opinion and people with different ideas about who you were, what you would want, and who you “belong” to. When those who are left behind are spread across the globe, when they have different ideas of what constitutes proper protocol and dispute who has the authority to make those decisions, it can leave everyone feeling a little robbed of their freedom to grieve.

Ward Kamel’s beautiful and devastating short film, If I Die In America, which debuted at SXSW, tackles this question with searing aplomb. When Manny’s husband, Sameer, dies suddenly, his grief is usurped by an unexpected battle with Sameer’s family, who refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of their relationship and any claim he tries to stake on his husband’s body. I sat down with Ward to discuss his process and the thoughts and experiences that inspired the film.

The following interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

HYPERREAL FILM CLUB (HFC): You're exploring a topic that a lot of people outside the community might not know about, and that's Muslim burial rites. Can you talk about your personal experience with that?

WARD KAMEL (WK): I grew up mostly in Syria, and then also Dubai. And I was raised Muslim, I am Muslim. And it was never something that I thought twice about; it made a lot of sense, as is the case in Judaism as well, that burial ought to occur really quickly, right after death. This is kind of a sidetrack, but it's interesting, anthropologically, to note that these are both religions located in very hot regions.

Some theories point towards the fact that that might be part of it. But yeah, it wasn't anything I ever thought twice about. It is very urgent, and compared to Western funeral rites, there is a lot less pomp and circumstance—it's really cut and dry, get it done. Usually, bodies are wrapped in just simple white cotton. No caskets, it's really pretty straightforward.

I moved here for college, and I've always been pretty aware of Western culture and media, having consumed that for my entire life. But living here for awhile, you have these conversations, maybe these are grim conversations, but I'm definitely having tough conversations with fellow immigrants, immigrant artists. And with the Muslim ban happening, it made it so that I didn't really end up leaving the country for like six years. So I didn't see my family for six years. And you start thinking about what would happen if, not to kind of plug the title, but what would happen if I died here, all of a sudden. My body has almost more agency than my actual living person. Immediately, maybe I can be sent back. And in fact, I would have to be sent back very quickly.

And also being married at the time, there was this idea, this interesting dichotomy of having my partner whom I was married to potentially have more agency over my body than my parents, which felt kind of bizarre, because, obviously, you know, we had this loving relationship, but at the same time, there was that real added reality of the green card thing. So on one hand, [my partner] has more agency than my parents do. But on the other hand, that also makes sense, because I hadn't seen my parents for six years. And I'm not extremely close to them. All of this led to a lot of conversations, and finding that a lot of similar conversations were being had by other immigrant artists, they're wondering the same thing. And they're talking about the same thing, immigrants in general.

It’s something I’m exploring in the process of trying to make this into a feature. Is there even dignity in death? Being Syrian, I’m kind of quasi stateless. And even in death, there's a little bit of a humiliation. And the elephant in the room is the queer aspect of dealing with a pretty traditionally conservative Muslim family.

HFC: Directing is many things but it is above all else about working with actors, and you put your actor through the ringer. Can you talk about your process with him?

WK: I feel incredibly, incredibly grateful. I feel so blessed. It's so surreal to think that I got to work with an actor like Gil [Perez Abraham], the lead. He's really one of the most talented actors I've ever worked with. He's very impulsive. And it was interesting because the actress [Hana Chamoun] who played Dalal comes from a traditional Meisner training. So she’s very methodical and then Gil is this incredibly impulsive actor. We cast Gil first. Essentially, I think the process kind of boiled down to making sure that we had talked about everything that we could possibly talk about leading up to the shoot. We didn't rehearse, we both kind of don't really subscribe to the rehearsal process, especially with a role like this. And with a shoot that short, we were trying to be pretty generous with how much time we had. So we were kind of rehearsing as we were going along. I would say we had maybe 20 hours of conversations.

It’s not evident in the film, but he has Lebanese heritage, so he related to the other characters, you know, that the Muslim side of it. We talked about everything from that to his experience with queerness and in the arts. He also has Hispanic heritage, and shared some of my experiences being in a traditional culture and being part of the queer community.

The process really boiled down to exhaustive conversations, and making sure that when we were on set, we had already talked through everything that we could talk about. And that allowed Gil's impulsivity to always feel like he was operating on the same page that I was operating on, maybe he might skip down the line, or he might go to the corner. But I knew that we had drawn the very, very rough outline of who this character is, where he comes from, and what he's bringing to the table. And that got us to a point where really all Gil did was play. And he felt comfortable and safe playing. Because he wasn't super worried about missing the mark.

HFC: You mentioned your actress had Meisner training. When you have different actors on the same set who have different approaches, how do you deal with that, as a director?

WK: I think that it usually ends up leading to the most beautiful and fun and exciting work when not all actors are coming in, and everyone's Stanislavsky, or everyone's Meisner. I think they can get a little too deep in those grooves if the group is homogeneous. Hana would be so genuinely surprised when Gil did something impulsive. And her reaction to it would be informed by the technique she's bringing to the table, the same way that Gil would feel like Hana would sometimes anchor the scene because of her traditional training. And he could kind of lean on that and experiment and bounce off of it. It almost made the job of directing a bit easier.

I think it would, in fact, probably be more difficult to direct when everyone's coming from the same tradition. The training becomes a bit of a shortcut, but when they’re surprising each other, truly, they kind of start doing your job for you. Which is, for me, a joy, you know, because I'm just sitting at the monitor. And the most magical moments are when you're not watching the tape. You start feeling like you're watching the movie. And that was happening a lot, because the performances were taking a life of their own.

HFC: What was the pre-production process like for this? I know that’s a very broad question, but with an independent short, each project is its own story and it's not a simple undertaking at all. What were the roadblocks you faced and the corners you had to cut?

WK: I think the basic thing is always how can I do this for the least amount of money in the least amount of time? That’s always what you're fighting obviously. Especially with a short. This was an NYU thesis, technically. So I had a lot of support from NYU financially and also a lot of the gear. I have amazing producers in Adrián Lausell and Cameron Morton. Both of them were holding my hand throughout the entire process.

I felt like there were really two things that we were up against. Obviously, we shot a lot in this house, that's not that hard, you know, you can find a house. But then there was the funeral home. We had to find a nice funeral home with an exterior location. And then finding a location that was relatively close to our home location and our other shooting location, which was this kind of open road with a field right next to it. It's almost like when you have a plate of food in front of you and you finish your least favorite sides first. So you're saving up for what you like. We just tackled it by saying, What’s hardest? Okay, the first thing we need to do is secure a funeral home and build around that, particularly because if the funeral home we found was perfect, but they were only available on a Saturday, then that would probably inform when we would be renting out the house.

That was sort of the biggest piece of the puzzle and we allowed everything else to fit around it. We were very lucky to work with the Union Funeral Home in New Jersey. And then everything else could fall into place. It was then just a process of canvassing Google Maps like, “Okay, that looks like a field,” and finding the road. And then as soon as we found the funeral home and a road close enough to it, it was just about finding a nice home location that we felt was sparse enough so that we could set design it more easily and also big enough to have a lot of the crew sleep there overnight.

HFC: So you shot in New Jersey?

WK: Yeah, in Union and in Plainfield. I love shooting in Jersey.

HFC: It's a great little state. It contains multitudes.

WK: I'm a Jersey fan.

HFC: Every project is a filmmaking lesson. With every project, there's something that you didn't anticipate and you can only learn it through doing it and getting it wrong. I feel like a big lesson I had to learn the hard way is something can really, really work on the page and still not work on the screen for a number of reasons. What were some of your filmmaker realizations you had through this?

WK: I just have had so many experiences, both as a director or as a producer, where we're trying to make it for the least amount of money and in the least amount of time. But there is sort of a breaking point where that starts becoming penny wise and dollar stupid. If you're gonna spend the money for a three-day shoot, but it won't work in three days, then you might as well not even make the film until you know that you can spend the money required to shoot for four days. Because you're going to get a kind of half baked film. And it's a shame because you're spending a lot of money even for those three days.

On this project there were maybe seven different movies that we could have made [out of the footage we shot] because of the range that Gil would be delivering in different takes. Something I certainly learned from a previous short was to make sure that we were scheduling it so that there was room to play. I think what we did right was make it so that there was that room to play. We shot I think 11 shots a day, or like 10 shots a day, which felt generous enough that we could really sit in certain takes and try something out and give him room to explore. Because I also feel like in the past I’ve made the mistake of frustrating an actor by forcing them to go at such a rapid pace with a script. And with subject material this heavy, asking him to basically be going through the very first stage of grief, if I'm rushing him through it was probably not going to be a good time for us. And it was not really going to bring the best out of him. I think what I learned was the importance of pacing the shoot, and really letting yourself on the back end be prepared to take your time.

HFC: Have you experienced any tension with anyone as a result of making the film? That’s always a risk when you’re talking about real situations.

WK: None so far. But I will say, I haven't shared the film with the majority of my family. If this sparks any level of tension or any kind of friction, I want to believe that ultimately, that's potentially a good thing. Because it means we're having these conversations. And I think from my own experience and in a lot of other cultures as well, the inclination can be if it's uncomfortable, let's just not bring it up. And I don't think that's extremely productive. I know that a lot of times it's hard and you're risking these relationships, potentially, but I believe in the power of truth, not to get super grandiose, and the only way to even approach that is to start talking about it.

This festival experience has definitely emboldened me to be able to share it with more people because I feel like it's a bit validated. Whereas when it was just me with the film in my room with my editor and we watched it, you get to the point where it's just pictures on a screen, it's hard to tell whether it's any good. But sharing with people and getting their reactions is definitely emboldening me to share it with more people, specifically my family. And I think that if it does bring up any sort of tense conversations or any friction, I'm really hoping that I can love that.

HFC: You say you worry about seeming grandiose, but I think that is the power of art and the power of film. It can accomplish these things in a shorthand that a simple conversation can’t even when it's face-to-face, and really, really heartfelt. Sometimes seeing things play out in an imaginary scenario with imaginary characters that you are empathizing with will open up that humanity and that conversation. And I think your film did that really effectively. And the last question that I always ask is, what's next for you?

WK: What's next is this feature adaptation of this short. This short started as a feature, we sort of pulled it out of the feature to make it as short as a bit of a proof of concept. And yeah, that's what's next. We've packaged a deck and the script and we're trying to get it made.

HFC: Well I wish you the best of luck. Thank you so so much.

WK: Thank you.

Discussing Bodily Autonomy in Life and Death with If I Die In America director, Ward Kamel