At its centre is Layal, a woman holding together a space of order in the middle of chaos. But when her younger brother faces enlistment, the outside world breaks through the station’s carefully drawn borders. To save him, Layal must turn to the one person from whom she has long been separated: her sister. What begins as a story of survival becomes something more intimate, a portrait of family, estrangement and the impossible choices war forces upon those who are left to protect life.
With Al Mahattah, Ishaq crafts a film about women not as symbols of suffering, but as architects of resistance. In a landscape too often defined by conflict, she finds a cinematic language of tenderness, tension and defiance, where a petrol station becomes both refuge and rebellion.
AM: How does it feel to bring the film to the epicentre of cinema?
Sara Ishaq: It feels very surreal. It is incredibly exciting, and honestly, it is a dream come true. When you start working on your first feature, you do not necessarily imagine that it will reach the epicentre of cinema. You dream of it, of course, but you do not really know where the film will go. So to be here now, with what I believe is the first Yemeni film to be officially presented in Cannes, and to see it shown in theatres with such an incredible response, has been overwhelming. Seeing how audiences are reacting to the film has made me very happy. It really blows my mind.
AM: You grew up between different worlds, with Yemeni and Scottish roots. How did that dual identity shape the way you imagined this film?
Sara Ishaq: I think when you grow up between two worlds from a young age, it inevitably shapes the way you see things. I was born in Scotland, but I moved to Yemen when I was around one year old, and I lived there until I was 17 or 18, before moving back to Scotland. I grew up mainly in Yemen, with a Scottish mother who lived there with us, while also being surrounded by my Yemeni family and culture. My parents were divorced, so I would move between my mother’s house and my father’s house. In a way, I was always living between two worlds, even though I was physically inside Yemen. That sense of being split between different perspectives has stayed with me. It allowed me to look at things from the inside, but also with a certain distance. I think that tension helped shape the film.
AM: Western audiences are often fascinated by stories about Arab women, sometimes through a very stereotypical lens. How did you approach that in Al Mahattah?
Sara Ishaq: I think cinema is gradually beginning to change that, but there is still a long way to go. Because of the wars in the region and the migration of Arabs to the West, people are encountering Arabs much more often now. They are starting to realise that Arab women are not all the same, and that we do not all fit one image or one expectation. What frustrates me is the idea that women in Yemen need to be educated or saved by the West. When I lived in Yemen, I saw incredibly strong women. In my own family, women drove, worked, went to school and had very powerful personalities. Yemeni women are not passive.
If you look back before the 1970s, you see very different images of Yemeni women, with silver jewellery, traditional dress and a strong visual identity. This idea that Yemeni women are only oppressed, or that they need to be saved, is not the full reality. Yemeni women are queens. They are human, layered and complex. They can love, they can be intelligent, they can be weak and strong at the same time. They are completely capable of standing up for themselves.
AM: Was it important for you to show Yemeni women with that complexity?
Sara Ishaq: Absolutely. I wanted to show women as full human beings, not symbols. Yemeni women are often represented through suffering or conflict, but that is only one part of the picture. For me, it was important to show their strength, humour, contradictions and dignity. They are not one thing. They are not only victims, and they are not only heroines either. They are complicated, like all human beings.
AM: What were the biggest challenges during production?
Sara Ishaq: One of the biggest challenges was casting. After writing the script, I became very nervous about finding actors who could truly carry it. In the beginning, when you are still developing the script, you do not know exactly where it will go. But as the script became stronger, it also became scarier. There were scenes that were emotionally intense, and I kept thinking, “Who is going to carry this?” With my co-writer, we would get very involved in the scenes, and sometimes they would become very dramatic. I knew that if the actors could not find the truth in those moments, it could make or break the film.
Because Yemen does not really have a cinema industry, that was terrifying. We had to search widely. We discovered around 150 women online before I even travelled for casting workshops in Egypt and Jordan. These women were living everywhere: Yemen, Egypt, Jordan, Malaysia, Canada, Europe and the United States. Through that process, I realised there was so much talent and potential in the Yemeni diaspora and beyond.
AM: Was there a particular moment on set that stayed with you?
Sara Ishaq: Yes, there is one moment I will never forget. There is a sandstorm scene in the film, almost like a nightmarish sequence. What is amazing is that the sandstorm happened completely by chance. We were filming a procession scene with all the women in a village, and it was extremely hot. People were fainting. I almost passed out myself. We were trying to keep everyone hydrated and fed, but some people were still suffering from heatstroke.
We had done the scene maybe twice, and I remember thinking, “Okay, this has to be it.” Then, suddenly, this windstorm arrived exactly when we needed it. It felt miraculous. It gave the scene an energy and atmosphere we could never have planned.
AM: Looking back, what did that experience teach you as a filmmaker?
Sara Ishaq: It reminded me that cinema is always a mixture of preparation and chance. You can plan everything, but sometimes the film gives you something you could never have imagined. That sandstorm was one of those gifts. It came at a difficult moment, when everyone was exhausted, but it transformed the scene. Moments like that make you remember why filmmaking is so magical, even when it is incredibly hard.