“The film of my life”: In conversation with Sink’s Zain Duraie, Clara Khoury, and Mohammed Nizar
Antler River Media’s Emmanuel Akanbi sat down with the director of Sink (2025), Zain Duraie, and the two leading actors Clara Khoury and Mohammad Nizar for an interview.
It takes a lot of heart, insight, and a delicate touch to bring together a film such as Sink, but speaking with director Zain Duraie and leads Clara Khoury and Mohammad Nizar — who played a mother (Nadia) and son (Basil) struggling hand in hand through the heavy fog of mental illness — it was clear the cast and crew, forged into family through the film, had these qualities in spades.
Fitting for such an emotionally laden film, the journey was not easy, and finding the perspective to explore the topic was a journey of its own.
“I had to try every point of view when I was writing the script; I did a script for Basil, Nadia, the little girl, the brother. I tried every perspective and then I threw it all in the garbage and I said to myself: it’s the mom. She’s the lead in this. She’s leading this story. [She has] so much complexity and nuance, and then intertwining that with a teenager’s bursts of emotions,” Duraie said. “This is going to be an emotional film.”
Duraie was adamant on writing the script herself, turning down suggestions to work with a co-writer. “It’s my baby and I’m not sharing it with everyone,” she said. The lack of dialogue in favour of silent scenes and the stylistic decisions to shoot scenes in different aspect ratios were contentious, but Duraie had a vision, and would not let anyone convince her otherwise, constantly repeating her affirmation, “Trust yourself. This is your script.”
Thankfully, Duraie found others who perfectly shared her vision. Four Daughters (2023) cinematographer Farouk Laâridh seemed to instantly and intuitively understand the direction Duraie wanted to take, and had the expertise to get them there.
“We had a call on Zoom and he had read the script and he was so prepped. I was so impressed. Like, he sent me the mood board, and — without me telling him, because I was about to tell him, ‘Oh, by the way, I’m going to shoot this film on two different aspect ratios,’ — he said: “Okay, the opening. In a box.” And I did not tell him anything, it was on his own, and I said, ‘That’s it.’”
Khoury and Nizar agreed.
“He was very sensitive, very attentive. He feels, and completed her [Duraie], and completed us, and we felt the camera was a friend. It’s really like he captured every emotion,” Khoury said.
Nizar described working with Laâridh as surreal. “I really loved the pool shots. Working with Farouk was something else because I knew from the beginning he had a specific sort of look in mind.”
With incredible prepping, organization, and collaboration, all in service of a clear vision, the film was shot in only 22 days. For a debut feature, this was unthinkable.
Prevailing emotional silences drove the heavy moments in the film, and to find a cast that could deliver performances to reflect the necessary weight was a gift — for both the director and her leads. “The first time I read it, I was like. I want this. It’s such a present. Really, it’s a present for any actress to get such a role,” said Khoury. A film detailing mental health in such a raw and honest manner was an incredible opportunity, specifically for an Arabic-language feature. “In Arab societies, it’s all under the carpet. Nobody speaks up. It’s shameful to say that you have a problem inside your family,” Khoury explained. To play a deeply psychological and nuanced character like Nadia was described as an honour — “I’m very proud to be in this film. I enjoyed making it, I enjoyed the whole process, the before, the after, and during.”
Much of the film’s success relied on the challenging performance of Basil. Duraie had her eye on Nizar for the role 3 years prior to shooting, giving him ample time to sink into the character. “That really helped when we actually started the hard prep before the shoot. I really had the base — she [Duraie] established the base of who he was, what this world was for him,” Nizar said.
Such a thematically rich film would fall apart without the cast. Long, silent scenes require actors to inhabit and create their own tension, which can only be done with an intimate understanding of their characters and a steadfast trust in the director’s vision. “When you’re working with super talented people like those two, like there are no loopholes. If I fall into a loophole, like I did sometimes, they’d get me out of it. We completed each other,” said Duraie.
“The performances are — not because it’s my film — but I think they’re just exquisite. Sometimes I would just go on my laptop [to] watch the sequence in the garden.”
There is uninhibited pride in their voices when they speak of the film, and how the experience of schizo-affective disorder seeps from the individual to beyond. How does a mother — locked eternally on the outside, desperately trying to see clearly from her own cage of internal struggles and biases — save her sinking son?
“You really want to help because he’s going to be better tomorrow. Every mother would think whatever happens to her kids, they’re going to be okay,” said Khoury, relaying her own experience as a mother to her character. “You see your kids in pain, and you want to help but you can’t — she was trying all sorts of ways to help him, whether to get close to him, to get into his head, to do activities with him, the swimming, the ‘lets go out!’ — I’ll take a vacation from my job, I’ll stay home a little bit, I’ll put more focus on my kids, especially on him. But then it just falls apart and gets out of control. And she had to set him free. Accept him the way he is. And accept his illness.”
The quiet opening of the film takes place in a square aspect ratio, framing Nadia and Basil. Described as a “box,” the aspect ratio helps set the stage for how we can view these characters. “[Nadia] is inside that box. Basil is also inside that box through her, because she’s locking him in with her. And they’re really attached to each other.” Duraie said. “And I think also the denial. I think we’re usually in denial about stuff in our life or about other people. We are trapped in the box even if the world is open. We have a car, we have our coffee, but internally, we are in a box. And this is where Nadia was, until that scene where she sets him free with the chicken. And she sees him for who he is. And when she sees him, everything opens. Because when you see the problem in front of you and you see it for what it is, everything else in your life will open. She goes back to her kids, she goes back to her husband, she goes back to herself.” Despite it all, and all the challenges, “He [Basil] changed her. And he made her dance for the first time in a very long time.”
The separation and the understanding that someone is lost was felt by the audiences at the Toronto International Film Festival, several of whom came up to Duraie after the premiere to share their experiences with schizo-affective disorders.
“I think it’s harder than death itself,” said Duraie, of losing someone to a mental illness. “Because you’re seeing someone in front of you that you no longer know, you no longer recognize. You wish that person would come back. This film will not get these people back, but they have love.”
The heavy emotions from the film’s premiere returned during the interview, with tears from the director and her stars. It’s ending seemed bleak in many ways, with Nadia having to truly let Basil go. But the look she gives him before he is taken away is one that earmarks the film with hope. For Duraie, there was no other way it could have ended. “I had to keep the hope. It was the only way out.” said Duraie. She believes the hope is in continuing to care for Basil, with Nadia now understanding that she can’t help him how she would have hoped to, all she can do is care for him. “Maybe she’ll never go back to work,” said Duraie. “I think [Basil]’s journey continues as however people see it, but it doesn’t matter where he’s going, because he has his mum, he has his family.”
“Knowing that he has a mother, he has a family at the end of the day. That’s love, that’s what he needs.” Nizar added.
Although the film leaves Basil’s mental illness undiagnosed, Khoury finds hope in Basil possibly seeking treatment, a hope she extends to anyone dealing with mental health crises. “This is the hope of really letting go, and opening up, and admitting to yourself that you’re not okay, and I need help.”
As with any story with such sharp emotion, Sink comes from a real place. “It’s about someone super close to me so it comes from real pain. I wanted to heal myself as well,” explained Duraie. “I wanted to write about this person’s experience, and how much it affected me. I think what I was trying to say in all of this… I wanted to find love through my film. There was something that was lacking in me that I found through this film. That I put on paper and wanted to create. Because I think as artists this is what we do — we look for things. We look for things that we don’t have and want to find somewhere else; we want to create it. I think this is what I wanted. I have Basil in me, in so many ways, and I have Nadia in me, in so many ways. I think it was, for me, a satisfactory game. I wanted to satisfy my imagination in the script, and I wanted to do everything I wanted.”
“I think when you write something from a deep and real place, it will show on screen. And if you’re writing something that’s not honest, people will feel it,” Duraie said. Her voice is unwavering when she declares, “Sink is the film of my life. If I die tomorrow, I would say, I made the film. I made the film I want. And it satisfied me on all levels.”
“[Duraie] made history in Arab cinema. She made a revolutionary film,” Khoury said. In her soft and measured voice that nonetheless carried steel, she turned to Duraie. “And you will be remembered in history.”
Sink (2025) is Zain Duraie’s debut feature film. It premiered at the 50th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and stars Clara Khoury, Mohammad Nizar, and Wissam Tobeileh.
