The Teacher Writer-Director Farah Nabulsi Knows the Painful Importance of Killing Your Darlings

NOTE: This article is a republication- Source: MovieMaker (by Margeaux Sippell).

While making her feature directorial debut, The Teacher, writer-director Farah Nabulsi had to learn a painful but necessary part of the editing process: killing your darlings.

A heartbreaking and inspiring story about the Israel-Palestinian conflict, The Teacher had its world premiere last week at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film stars Saleh Bakri, who also starred in Nabulsi’s Oscar-nominated short film “The Present,” as Basem El-Saleh, a school teacher who is secretly involved in Palestinian resistance efforts that involve harboring an abducted solider from the Israeli National Defence Forces.

The film also stars Imogen Poots, Muhammad Abed Elrahman, Mahmoud Bakri, Stanley Townsend, Ruba Blal, Andrea Irvine, Paul Herzberg, and Nabil Al Raee.

Farah Nabulsi on the Making of The Teacher

Nabulsi, a British citizen of Palestinian descent, found it difficult but necessary to whittle away some of her favorite scenes in order to underscore the most powerful emotional elements of the story.

“I’ll let you know a secret: one of the most painful, painful parts of this entire filmmaking process was the last 30% of the edit, where you’re literally killing off your babies,” Nabulsi tells MovieMaker.

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