“Intelligent, charismatic, handsome, huge giggles and at the same time dead serious.” The Dutch filmmaker Mijke de Jong (62) has no trouble explaining why she was satisfied after just one meeting with the twin sisters Malihe and Nahid Rezaie as the protagonists of her new film. Along the Way, which can now be seen in cinemas and received four stars from de Volkskrant. ‘I didn’t know if they could act. I knew this will work. I get them playing.’
De Jong recognized Malihe and Nahid’s fervent desire to tell their story. ‘They radiated it: everyone should hear and know their story.’ She heard of their story herself when she gave a film workshop in 2020 on the Greek island of Lesbos, in refugee camp Moria. “The priorities in a refugee camp are food and shelter, but it’s just as important to keep your creative spirit alive.”
The sisters attended her workshop: two Afghan girls whose parents had fled to Iran before they were born. When the girls are 17 and the family tries to reach Europe, things go wrong. With their older sister, they lose their parents on the border between Iran and Turkey.
They end up in Istanbul, in a room where they stay in for weeks out of fear – as young women on the run they felt incredibly vulnerable. Their parents are already in Bremen by then. Eventually they end up in camp Moria, where De Jong is inspired to film their escape story, with Malihe and Nahid in the lead roles.
‘On Lesbos I thought: what a story, we are going to do this’, says De Jong. ‘Back home, when I was writing the screenplay with Jolein Laarman and my husband Jan Eilander, I thought: what have we started? It is by no means certain that the girls will stay in Greece – if they are allowed to travel further to Germany, that will of course take precedence. They only speak Farsi, they have never acted. How is this ever going to work out?’
De Jong found an interpreter who also acted as assistant director, Natascha Erfanipour, and, back in Greece, emphatically involved the twins in the making process. ‘In an interview with the VPRO they said how surprised they were that you could just talk to me. In their eyes, directors were all cranky and stern, even though they had never spoken to a director before. I was them from the start ametheir aunt. I constantly tested the screenplay with them as I wrote it and had them explain the story to other actors. They grew into their roles.’
The twins were also given responsibility for the interviews with real female refugees intertwined throughout the story – an effective means in the film to convey a documentary realism. ‘This started with learning how to ask open-ended questions. In the end, it is they who ask the questions behind the camera. That really became their responsibility. This also increased their confidence.’
Not that the recordings went smoothly. ‘In the beginning they played with the greatest gestures imaginable. They thought of their favorite Afghan and Iranian soap operas: big and bombastic play. Characters who speak what they mean. I’ve got them A Separation by the Iranian director Asghar Farhadi: look, this is what I want. Realistic game. Subtle interactions.’
It finally started to work thanks to the method that has worked all her career: endless patience. ‘Then they looked at me for the umpteenth time after a recording and they said: it has to be smaller, doesn’t it, Mijke? More with ourselves. At one point we had that click. I recognize that process. I’ve worked with amateur actors before. It’s okay if you give someone the confidence that they can be themselves in front of the camera.’
The trick is to bring out the spontaneity of untrained actors even when the camera is rolling, she says. ‘The first attitude of non-professional actors is often: I have to play a part. I then try to make it clear: you are already characters of yourself, show that. The only difference is that sometimes the characters make different choices than you would.’