Céline Roustan
When Manny’s husband, Sameer, unexpectedly passes away, he is not afforded any time to grieve before his partner’s family demands to fly his body back to Kuwait for a traditional funeral. With If I Die in America, writer/director Ward Kamel crafts a deeply moving, multilayered family drama centered around heartache, where the absence of communication creates a devastating disconnect between everyone grieving.
“This idea of my remains almost having more agency than my living person was really fascinating to me”
The question, ‘What would happen if I were to die in [insert the country]?’ is something anyone who lives abroad would have considered at one point. For Kamel, it was actually the Muslim Ban that truly materialized the question. As a Syrian national based in the US, he was unable to go home for years. “If I were to die at any point throughout those 6 years, my body would have been repatriated back to Syria almost immediately”, he explained. Which left him fascinated with the idea of his “remains almost having more agency than [his] living person”.
Loss is never easy to navigate, yet it is one of the most universal experiences. While the situation Manny is thrown into is quite specific with strong cultural ties, being robbed of the chance to grieve is compelling to all and immediately deepens the empathy from the viewers. Over the 15-minute runtime of the film, Kamel subtly fleshes out Manny’s life with Sameer, and how the latter compartmentalized his life back home with his life in the U.S. An approach which ultimately helps to explain the emotional and cultural rifts between Manny and the family when faced with this unexpected tragedy. Narratively, the film is indeed devastating, yet Kamel successfully strikes the right tonal balance, avoiding unnecessary heaviness and allowing the audience the room to process it all.
Gil Perez-Abraham stars as Manny in Ward Kamel’s If I Die in America
Inherently, there is a ticking clock built into the narrative of If I Die in America, as according to Muslim traditions Sameer’s body has to be flown back to his home country as soon as possible to be buried. Kamel and editor Nathaniel Stevens amplify this urgency with the pacing of the film, creating a tense atmosphere. While Pat Zimmon’s sound design immerses us in the inner chaos of Manny’s mind – capturing his shock, lack of sleep, grief, and the anger of having to fight for his pain to be acknowledged.
In the film’s most heartbreaking moments, DP Idil Eryurekli’s (As You Are) camera frames lead actor Gil Perez-Abraham very closely, allowing him to convey the emotional depth of the screenplay. Kamel shared, “we really wanted the script and performance to take center stage”, and this decision truly allowed Perez-Abraham to be given the space to deliver a raw and authentic performance, full of sensitivity. His reactions to everything thrown at him, on top of losing his husband, are truly heartbreaking and make his grief all the more potent for the short’s audience.
If I Die in America had its World Premiere at the 2024 edition of SXSW, before making its way around the festival circuit, including a stop at the Palm Springs ShortFest, ahead of its Online Premiere as a Vimeo Staff Pick. Kamel has already shot a new short film that should be premiering in 2025 and is currently developing a feature adaptation of If I Die in America – with the script of the film winning Kamel the Academy Nicholl Fellowship this year.