2022 was quite the year for filmmaker duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah.
In April they decided to no longer direct the upcoming Beverly Hills Cop sequel, choosing instead to focus on finishing production on Batgirl.
Then in August, Warner Bros. Discovery made the shock announcement that they would no longer be releasing the superhero flick, deciding to write the film off for tax purposes.
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It’s definitely been a rough few months, but the pair are now looking to start 2023 on a high as they prepare for the release of Rebel, their most personal project to date, which is finally reaching audiences after a successful premiere at Cannes last May.
Following two young brothers as they face the threat of radicalisation, Rebel is a thrilling, tense, and ultimately emotional watch as we witness a family getting torn apart.
Never condemning the actions of brothers Kamal and Nassim, the film approaches the tricky topics of recruitment and radicalisation with empathetic understanding.
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It serves as a reminder that many of the people who join ISIS are just like us, people who are forced against their will to serve or corrupted at a very young age by powerful recruiters.
This is what Fallah saw happen repeatedly in his neighbourhood of Vilvoorde in Belgium, meaning he felt he had to make Rebel, a film that would tell their stories.
He explained to Zavvi: “It’s our most personal movie yet and so was approached differently compared to a big budget film.
“With those you just think about the budget but with Rebel, everything came from deep within our souls as this happened to people we grew up with. I saw friends of mine leave one by one – Vilvoorde is where most young people who went to Syria came from.
“Then seeing all those attacks, it was really painful as those young people are just like us. We felt that we had to tell this story, but we were also afraid as it’s like making a movie about the mafia. It was very intense.”
