Is he a philosopher, a businessman, an artist, a filmmaker,
a production designer or an art director? If you said any of these you’re
right. And if you said all of them you’re also right. Badr Farha was born in
Dubai but now lives and works in Hollywood, California. He works on films as an
art director, production designer and director. His body of work is quite
impressive and the list of films he’s participated in is pretty long.
His art directing career actually began years before it
truly began. Badr had a keen eye for detail ever since he could remember. He
noticed things like color, structure and tone in everything around him,
especially in the films he watched, particularly Great Expectations, the 1998 version, directed by Alfonso Cuaron.
That movie encompassed so much for Badr and kindled in him a curiosity about
the process of storytelling and filmmaking and how everything comes together in
that art form. Great Expectations was
THE film that influenced Badr strong enough to give up his very substantial
positions in the business world and go into filmmaking as a career. That movie
is never too far from Badr’s reach, as he revisits it regularly to discover
some new inspiration.
The talented Mr.
Ripley is another film that Badr sees as a masterpiece of art direction and
production design. It’s not the story in this film that attracts him, but the
choice of props and wardrobe and the masterful use of colors throughout the movie,
especially the greens and ambers, which blend in with Italy’s timeless summer. Those
kinds of things, what professionals call “below the line” things in a film
budget, are what stokes the fires of Badr’s passion for storytelling and movie
making. Not that stories and content aren’t important to him, because his most
personal film to date, which he wrote and directed, was selected to be in the Cannes Film Festival Court Metrage. The
film, The Last Conversation, was
highly praised by critics and audiences alike and it was the story that
fascinated and compelled Badr to bring it to life through film.
Badr has worked on countless films and he was art director on
several episodes of the popular TV series Seven
Year Switch. He also worked on two more Cannes
Film Festival Court Metrage selections, When Negatives Collide and More Than Words. Badr will be working on
the up coming feature film 1982 and
the documentary Free America.
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