Writer/ Director - Shamim Sarif 
Acclaimed novelist Shamim Sarif has deep roots in South Africa, where her parents and grandparents were born and raised - a heritage that inspired her first, award-winning novel, "The World Unseen".
"The World Unseen" won the Pendleton May First Novel Award, and then the prestigious Betty Trask Award. It was selected for inclusion at all the major UK book festivals, including Hay-on-Wye, Cheltenham and Edinburgh and sold out of its initial print runs.   
Johannesburg's leading newspaper, The Star, voted the book one of their books of the year. The Times in London called it "an impressive debut. Sarif's story brings together the descriptive power of the novelist with the screenwriter's mastery of dialogue." 
Her second novel, "Despite the Falling Snow" was published in London by Hodder Headline in May 2004 and received overwhelmingly excellent reviews.  In the autumn of 2005, the novel was released by American publisher St Martin's Press.  Shamim has adapted this moving tale set in cold war Russia and present day United States into a screenplay. The picture will be helmed by Sarif and produced by Hanan Kattan next winter.   
Shamim began her studies in directing at Raindance in London. "I Can't Think Straight" marked Shamim's debut feature film as a director. Starring Lisa Ray and Sheetal Sheth, and based on Shamim's forthcoming third novel, the movie is a touching, romantic comedy which follows the improbable love affair between two women of very differing cultures. Theatrical release is slated for mid 2008, after debut at festivals.

Q&A with director Shamim Sarif:

The World Unseen is based on your book of the same name. How did you go about turning your own book into a movie?
Stylistically, I tried to disassociate as a novelist, and keep in mind that a screenplay is a very different form. I had written screenplays before, so that wasn't new to me. In terms of adapting the story, I tried to identify the main themes and stay true to those rather than worrying about transposing exact scenes from the book. The exhilarating thing about then moving into directing from writing, is the collaboration. Being able to draw on the talents of so many passionate and brilliant people. 

What is The World Unseen about fundamentally?
It's about discovering your voice and then using that voice. Miriam spends much of the early part of the film and the book saying very little, but it is clear she has intelligence and a spark. What makes her heroic for me is that when Amina opens the door to another world, just a crack of light, Miriam has the courage to pull it open and walk through. Small changes can have a huge impact on the course of a life, and I wanted Miriam's story to be about that.  Daring to challenge rules and traditions that people generally do not question, that are accepted just because they have existed for a long time.

What inspired you to write/direct a love story taking place in 1950's Indian community in South Africa during the rise of Apartheid?
The specifics of that come from my family history. My parents left South Africa in the early 1960's because of apartheid. My parents and three grandparents were born and raised in South Africa. My great grandparents immigrated to South Africa from India. So the day to day indignities of that system were very real to me from my family's stories. 

Tell us more about the process of casting the lead characters.
Lisa Ray was an early choice for me. I was lucky that she loved The World Unseen as a project. She never made any demands about the role that she wanted, she just wanted to be part of it and see it made.  I think we work well together. Our ways of approaching characterization are similar - or at least complementary.  And Sheetal is an accomplished actress who I felt could bring a youth and earnestness to Amina.  Parvin Dabas I had seen in Monsoon Wedding, and he and I shared the view that Omar was frustrated more than nasty. Most of the rest of the casting took place in South Africa, and our biggest issue there was casting from a pool of Indian talent that was very good, but not vast. I ended up casting my son Ethan as Lisa's son!

Where was the movie shot?
It was shot entirely in South Africa, in and around Cape Town. Hanan and I never really considered anywhere else. We had been working with Brigid Olen on The World Unseen for some time, and she helped bring together a wonderful, passion-driven crew.  Tanya Van Tonder (Production Design) and Danielle Knox (Wardrobe) were stand-outs. And I think the locations we found lend a real authenticity to the piece. I fell in love with Miriam's shop and the landscape. Those sunsets and sunrises were all real, and not scheduled to be shot, but we could not be in that place with a camera without trying to capture them.

The film features some classic music and few new unknown voices. Tell us more about that.
I think music can capture a sense of period instantly. And at that time, American jazz was very popular, as was South African jazz. Listening to those genres at that time was an implication of slight rebelliousness, coolness. So it was a natural choice for Amina's café, and had been so since the novel. I tend to have a 'soundtrack' which I build on while I am actually writing to create a sense of place and time for me while writing both novels and scripts. I chose the tracks myself, often having to widen my search for the right feel when certain recordings were too expensive. But to have Nina Simone, Dinah Washington, Billie Holiday on the soundtrack is a thrill.   
The end credit song was written specially for the film by an incredibly talented singer-songwriter, Leonie Casanova, who also agreed to play Doris, the dancing, feisty waitress in the movie.  I haven't had an audience who weren't enraptured by that song, 'Broken'.

Many lesbian movies of recent years has been claimed to be 'lesbian Brokeback Mountain'. It has been associated with your film as well. What do you think of that?
While it is flattering - both the book and movie of Brokeback are beautifully crafted - I certainly did not set out to emulate it. In fact I read Brokeback long after I published the book of The World Unseen.   
There are a few similarities. I think mainstream audiences relate to The World Unseen because the love between the characters is overwhelming. You feel for them, in a world which won't sanction them. And that perhaps recalls Brokeback. Also the period setting and the sweeping landscapes lend a certain familiarity.

It is a nice change to see on screen positive lesbian characters, that are (very) pleasing to the eye, don't end up killed, committing suicide or in jail, and might even have a happy ending lined-up. Was that a conscious choice? 
It was not conscious. But I did want to create a world in which a character like Amina just happens to be lesbian. Where it is simply a fact, and not the raison d'etre of the character.  And as a result, Miriam's journey was never about finding her sexuality, but finding her voice. The person who most inspired and encouraged that process in her happens to be gay, and so the feelings between them spill over into the romantic. Like the novel, which was never categorized as a 'lesbian' novel but sold well as a mainstream book, I hope the movie will reach a very varied audience because at it's heart it is about universal themes of self-discovery and change that almost anyone can relate to.

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