MEET YASSER HAMMAD
Yasser Hammad is said to be a “simple Jeddawi guy”, however, Fekr believes him to be one of the upcoming directors in the MENA who will change the industry. In his interview Yasser said that he grew up in a diverse lifestyle, “Grew up watching, traveling, exploring different cultures, which I feel made me a unique understanding and view of different cultures” he said, ”For example, I'd watch a sci-fi show like Rick and Morty while breaking down the easter eggs after watching an Arabic indie film and getting all the cultural and political references, playing animal crossing while listening to Mohamed Abdelwahab”. Yasser believes that his mode of work is inspired by from these multiple genres and backgrounds, that are interpreted in his work “As a freelance filmmaker in a growing industry, it's hard to sustain a work routine other than the one with depression”
The young director says that a single line he had to act out in an elementary school play is what sparked his passion for acting and stick to his true calling. Yasser's initial interest in acting led to him branching out once he went to film school in Los Angeles “I realized that it's isn't about making movies with big stunts and cool stuff. It's a whole other level of communicating with others, which allowed me to explore many aspects of the medium until I started to find my voice through it and understand myself.“
“Roll’em” is a feature film that Yasser wrote, he believes it’s one of his favorite projects due to its deep personal relation in some parts. There’s a depth to this feature film “I've learned so much from it and making it was coming of age journey to me and just went from a simple question I asked myself ‘What is Jeddah? What gives the city it's character? What is a city?’.” Writing the film at the mere age of twenty-two, the filmmaker now finds himself reliving elements within his own life, some that unfortunately didn’t make it on screen.
The inspiration behind “Roll’em” was fairly simple. Yasser had written a 50-page college assignment of a feature screenplay. The progression of Roll’em was the drive to not be able to start writing, “The inspiration grew out of the idea of what if we ended up like the older generation of film filmmakers in Saudi, with all the dreams they could've had and what reality had in store for them and the fights they went through.” The director, and producer Abdulelah AlQurashi, alongside Yasser, decided to depict the concept into a movie to showcase the difference between the two generations of filmmakers with their hopes and fallouts.
Due to the unfortunate corona circumstances, the Red sea film festival was canceled, in which Yasser impressively had two film features; “Roll’em” and “Solo man” an animated Sci-Fi film. However, the writer told Fekr how these letdowns have allowed him to diversify his artistic talents into the music industry as well. Collecting and DJ-ing with types of vinyl, and launching a separate Instagram account, “Samee3 Lamee3 عبدالسميع اللميع. Playing Arabic records from Umm Kulthum to Arabic funk and jazz, which gave me an opportunity to do a live set on MDL Beast Frequnices on their Instagram and the radio show. “
Yasser is a living breathing example of the artistic talent that MENA and particularly Saudi Arabia has to offer. “Dream far and out, but know that there's reality, and the rules of reality are different. So work as hard as you dream, and take every opportunity”
