Chadi Bennani is a filmmaker from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. In this interview the documentarian talks about his cinematic origins, the close and trusting relationship he builds with his subjects and crew, as well as how he uses film to explore personal questions around identity.
His film HERE AND THERE appears on T-Port courtesy of our partners at F3M. It is currently in the middle of its festival run. Professional Subscribers can watch the film on T-Port along with his previous film NICOLE.
Hi Chadi! Would you introduce yourself?
I’m a filmmaker from Montreal, Quebec, Canada, born in Chicago, Illinois. During my childhood, my family and I moved around a lot before settling in the Montreal suburbs when I was 12. In addition to the feeling of being uprooted time after time, my childhood was accompanied by a lot of time travelling between visits to see my family in Morocco (father’s side) and my family in Montreal (mother’s side). Telling stories with a camera quickly became my way to escape into a world where I could find comfort in the depths of my imagination.
Through my adolescence, I put arts aside and, like the other boys, I picked up sports. It’s only when I had to pick my college major, that I came back to filmmaking.
At 19, I lost my grandmother Nicole, who was like a mother to me. My mother and I had to empty her apartment, but were looking for a reason to tackle this insurmountable task. At that same time, I had to direct a documentary short film as a school assignment. I decided to use this pretext to bring a camera into our lives, filmmaking becoming my way of understanding myself and those around me. “Nicole” (2023), my first short film (Hot Docs 2023), became my mother’s way of saying goodbye, emptying her apartment object by object, and for my part, it was through the camera that I finally began to accept my grandmother’s departure.
From that point on, I understood the intimate relationship I wanted to have with filmmaking and the act of creating art. Out of college, I decided to professionally pursue filmmaking in order to continue exploring the inner parts of myself.
I approach the creative process from a perspective of care and intimacy with and for the people I make films with. “Here and There” (2023) was my first professional film project. This film was born from a need to voice my labyrinth of conflicting emotions and doubts regarding my cultural heritage as a second generation immigrant.
How did you first start working on this film? What was the process like and what first sparked the idea to make it?
I started working on “Here and There” through research for another fiction story I was writing. I wanted to take a step back from my personal story as a second generation immigrant and listen to what others had to say.
With a sound recorder and a 35mm film camera in hand, I started the conversation with friends and eventually started discussing with teenagers around high schools in Montreal. I was also coaching high school basketball at the time and was witnessing first hand how some of these teenagers were influenced by their relationship with their cultural heritage in their everyday life. I eventually realised that I had my two feet in a greater process, one of conversation and reconciliation with repressed parts of self.
I decided to cherish the space of exchange that I was in and push my creativity a step further, thus creating a documentary short film (“Here and There”) with a few of the teenagers I had met.
Tell us a bit about your film and the filmmaking process – what did it take to make your film?
This film is built on trust. I believe in only bringing people into spaces and truths you are also willing to put yourself through.
To make this film, I had to face the many unanswered questions I still had relating to my cultural identity. Am I legitimate to carry my father’s heritage? Can I consider myself Quebecois? Am I defined by a percentile of belonging (50% Moroccan, 50% Quebecois)? Do I belong somewhere, or does the sum of my parts condemn me to never fully belong anywhere?
These are open questions I had and shared with all of the people I met throughout the research and casting process. It’s only through these conversations that I started finding answers to my questions. It’s through the honesty of not knowing that we built this film together – Ana, Adam, and Dahlia quickly becoming the foundation of this film.
They were cast for “Here and There” because they also wanted to seize this film as a pretext to search for answers about themselves and their families. Dahlia wanted to address her insecurities to her grandmother for the first time, as well as to immortalise their relationship through cinema. Ana wanted to question her roots and try to understand if it was legitimate for her to carry this heritage as a part of who she is. Adam wanted to use this film as a pretext to rekindle his relationship with his father, a man to whom he had stopped speaking for a while.
This film served as a way for him to lay a path for his father and himself to find ways to see and hear each other; a way towards the only person that can show him where he comes from.
What were the biggest challenges you encountered during making your film?
The biggest challenges encountered during production was building the schedule. Due to financing constraints, production had to take place somewhere between the end of May and mid-June.
Our cast being busy high school students, we had to compose with the schedules of what seemed to be those of politicians. Between classes, studying, exams, extracurricular activities, work, and family events, time for the film production was very scarce. We were blessed to work with a very dedicated, generous and understanding cast who did their very best to make it happen.
How was it to collaborate with your cast and crew? Have you formed any particular meaningful connection from someone from the crew you would like to share?
I formed a beautiful connection with “Here and There”‘s cinematographer Etienne Roussy. Etienne and I bonded really quickly on our first meeting at a local coffee shop. Being a cinematographer myself, we talked for hours about the deep connection we have with a film when operating handheld. We also talked of our love and admiration for the works of Robbie Ryan.
Etienne being more experienced than myself, I was at first hesitant to fully assume my decisions as a director. It’s by his gentle and generous way of listening and caring that he very rapidly made me understand that my instinct and way of seeing things was the only authentic way through which we could make this film.
Jeremie Mazan, the editor of this project and of my past films, and I were always so impressed when discovering the rushes. We were moved by the way in which Etienne listens to the people and moments he films. Etienne and I are currently working together on “Beyond the Waves”, my first feature documentary project.
Can you share the most important lessons you learned through the process of making the film?
Take a step back and listen. The story often unfolds itself when you learn how to truly look at things through the way they make you feel, rather than think.
If you could go back in time to pre-production and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?
Be precise in the way you present each character. Focus on what makes them unique.
What was it like for you working with the subjects you cast?
I like to talk to actors and/or a documentary cast as I would talk to my cinematographer or producer; as a member of the team, working towards telling a story. As for everyone I work with, no matter the department, I most enjoy working from a place of emotional availability and transparency. I love to build an ongoing exchange of energy to bring the scene to a place where we all feel like we could properly express ourselves through its creation.
How has the process of distributing the film been for you so far? What have you learned?
The distribution process has been great so far. We’re blessed to have met and worked with people with whom the film deeply resonated and took great care of bringing it to a larger audience. Throughout the distribution of the film, I’ve learned that “Here and There” deeply resonates with many. As for all my films, I create from a very personal place. I’m always very touched to discover that film found a way to become its own thing. Something that others can make theirs and carry within them, even for a short while.
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