PROFILES


David Ayer and Nigel Sinclair End Of Watch


David Ayer’s fascination with law enforcement and the South Los Angeles milieu has resulted in arguably his most kinetic work yet as director — End Of Watch — which screens here tonight. Exclu- sive Media committed to the project at script stage and financed, pro- duced and handled international sales before Emmett/Furla Films came on board to finance a portion. Open Road will release in the US on September 21. Producers are John Lesher, Ayer and Exclusive Media’s Nigel Sinclair and Matt Jackson.


Why were you drawn to this story? David Ayer I’ve got a lot of friends in law enforcement and as a dram- atist there are always enhanced stakes in policing — it’s life and death and there’s the potential for violence. I wrote it in December


2010. In its original concept it started out as a found footage movie. I wrote the script in six days; it sort of exploded out of me.


How did Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena prepare? DA Within a couple of months of writing it, Jake was on board. We


had to find the right partner for him and that started a large search. We got Mike Pena — he’s so gifted and the next thing you know I was shooting it. They went on ride-alongs with several differ- ent police divisions. They spent a lot of time on the street and in South Los Angeles and saw how the police deal with [the area].


You shot the film over 25 days in August 2011 in South Los Angeles using special cameras. DA I modified the SI-2K camera system to create the intense PoV shots of the protagonists. All told it was size of a pack of smokes, so we could mount the camera on these vests that a friend designed. The


camera goes on to the vest or is held on a fishing rod or stick and dangles between the actors. It’s only limited by your imagination.


David has a very intense vision. How did you deal with that? Nigel Sinclair It was clear David had a singular vision. It was clear to me we interfered at our peril, so we made a policy decision not to interfere. End Of Watch was a very intense tale with what was, no doubt, quite a dark ending; as the creative team came together David, working with his actors, developed it to make it richer and more fulfilling, without losing any of the intensity.


Jeremy Kay


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David Ayer Nigel Sinclair Mira Nair The Reluctant Fundamentalist


The Reluctant Fundamentalist is adapted from Mohsin Hamid’s Booker-shortlisted 2007 novel about a Pakistani man named Changez (played by Riz Ahmed) who was a rising star on Wall Street but becomes disenchanted with the American dream. India- born, New York-based Nair says she was drawn to the story’s cross- cultural elements and the chance to direct her first thriller. K5 han- dles international sales with Cinetic handling North American rights. After opening Venice, the film comes to TIFF today.


Why did you love this book and want to adapt it into a film? I was raised in India by a father who came from Pakistan, who grew up in Lahore before the Par- tition of India. I was raised almost Lahori without realising it, in the sense of the poetry, the music, the language. It was only about six years ago when I was invited to Pakistan, and it’s not often that an Indian gets to go across the border. There was such hospitality and


Why did you castRiz Ahmed as your leading man? It’s such a demanding role, I searched all over India, America, Europe. It was tough to find that person. I did many auditions in many


countries and then Susie Figgis said, “If you are looking for intel- ligence, there is only one guy.” He is truly astounding, he plays the role with such urgency and intel- ligence.


Mira Nair on set with Riz Ahmed (left)


embrace, by absolute strangers. I felt like this was such a different culture than what we read about in newspapers. And then I read Mohsin


Hamid’s book in manuscript and immediately bought it. It gave me the platform to explore these ideas of where we come from. It was a genuine dialogue with the west.


This film involves 9/11. Do you think audiences are ready to see that on film? It’s not a 9/11 film, but we cannot


n 34 Screen International at Toronto September 8, 2012


ignore it. It did change the world and it did change people’s atti- tudes toward each other. It’s not something that we do dwell upon… but we are not shy- ing away from the fact the world is a complicated place. The film does not shy away from that complexity. My model is The Battle Of


Algiers, in which both the French and Algerian sides are treated with the same intelligence and grace. That is how I’m trying to do this.


How did you prepareRiz and everyone else before the shoot? I’m really a believer in music, so I first shared a sort of playlist, and Riz is a musician so that was a great way in. We shared a lot of contemporary Pakistani music with each other. Mohsin was a huge help, he met with Riz a number of times. We also did physical work,


about him looking a certain way, and that beard, my god! That beard is its own character in the movie.


Wendy Mitchell


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