“The Falconer”

Written & Directed by Seanne Winslow & Adam Sjoberg
Produced by David Jacobson, Adam Sjoberg, and Seanne Winslow

The Falconer is a film about two best friends, Tariq and Cai.  Tariq is a kid from a poor family living in a village in Oman, and his best friend Cai is a privileged kid from America. They work together at a ramshackle zoo and share a love for animals and a taste for adventure, but their friendship is tested when Tariq's family faces a tragic situation involving his sister and Tariq is forced to confront the vast expanse between their two worlds.  This is a story filled with adventure, animals, unlikely characters and the complexities of a loving best-friendship.

As filmmakers we have always pursued telling stories that are imaginative but also countercultural, unlikely narratives rooted in the truth of the world we've experienced as global citizens and life-long travelers.  We've both spent large parts our lives living and working internationally, including places like East Africa, Palestine, and most importantly, Yemen, where we found this true story.  We worked for almost a decade to bring this story to life, fighting for the integrity of the real events, while imbuing it with our own imaginative touch, and we're so proud of how the film turned out.

This is not a film that was easy to make given the constraints of our budget, but we dove in head-first and got creative, working with local producers in Oman to make sure that we didn't have to cut corners on creating the film we endeavored to make. The resulting film is something we believe honors the culture that welcomed us and partnered with us in the telling of this story. In a time when the Middle East has often been portrayed with broad strokes or only as a land of villains for blockbuster American films, we've tried to turn those stereotypes upside down and tell a story that is both universal but also very specific to the place where it was filmed.  In many ways, it is a love song to the region, and at its core speaks to themes of sacrificial love and forgiveness, something much needed in the partisan, often bitter and isolationist times in which we're living.