June 27 - July 5, 2007. First days in Egypt, preparation for shooting.
All difficulties that you encounter in the process of shooting a film lead to one thought: "Am I doing everything as it ought to be? Am I sure in appropriateness of my actions?" And if you are really sure of yourself you keep on doing it your way surmounting obstacles.

Why have I mentioned this? Upon arrival Egyptian customs arrested two our cameras that we had planned to use for shooting our film The Strangers. It was difficult to overestimate that problem. Firstly, the cost of those cameras together with the special optical accessories could easily budget some serious film. Secondly, there were no similar cameras at the Egyptian film studios. Their equipment was seriously behind ours.

I didn't know for how long the cameras would be kept by the customs but I believed that sooner or later the common sense would prevail. The problem of our shooting group was that we encountered corruption in its most undisguised form. And the problem of the Arab customs officials was that they were too greedy. There simply was no such a law that forbade bringing in movie cameras into Egypt. Arms, drugs - it's all clear. But why movie cameras can't be brought in? Nobody could explain that to us.

We asked: "What needs to be done for you to give us our cameras back? You just tell us and we will provide everything." The reply we received was: "Provide a letter from the Russian consul." When the following day the letter was in their hands they said: "And now provide a bank guarantee." All that red tape went on for more than a week meanwhile the whole shooting group including actors was ready for shooting long time before and was waiting in the hotel. At the end of the day I said to my administration that if tomorrow they would require from us one more "paper" we let them keep the cameras and bring an action against the Egyptian Customs Commission. Apparently only then they started to think. There was no point for them to keep longer such expensive equipment and be responsible for it and they certainly didn't need any clamor. After that they gave us our cameras back.

Of course it can be said that because of the downtime at the customs we wasted a lot of precious time. However everything that's done is for the better. I spent those days off for detailed discussion of the script, conversations with actors, adaptation of lines of the American characters as well as rehearsal. And already during that time became obvious the difference in the level of background between the Russians and the Americans. On one day I gathered on the lawn by the pool our guys who acted as soldiers and one American who performed the role of Tom. Despite the fact that it was a rehearsal "Tom" made a brilliant display. He gave all he'd got in full delivering his lines smoothly without a single mistake. And he did the same for the second time and then for the third time … There was no point in more rehearsing I saw that the actor was completely ready for shooting. But that could not be said about our guys.

It was indicative when I arranged meetings with the Americans to discuss their roles they all came with their printed lines, with notebooks and pens. At that each of them brought not one but two pens in case the first one ran out. When I arranged similar meeting with our young actors they came with cans of beer.

It was very interesting for the hotel staff to watch our meetings. One day on the same lawn by the pool we rehearsed a scene with two "soldiers". During shooting they would be carrying a heavy coil of wire but at the hotel just to have something in their hands they took an ordinary chair. Over twenty minutes the local security guards hiding in the bushes were observing how those strange Russians grabbed one chair and the two together carried it as if it weighed one ton and loudly spoke about something. They walked like that about ten steps, put down the chair, wiped away sweat and after that everything repeated again. The security guards didn't dare to come up and ask what it was all about.

While the actors could occupy themselves with something during that downtime the rest of the shooting group had to sit and do nothing. It was evident that those unexpected free days were not some "regular days off" for them. I felt that the people wanted to begin their work that they were impatient to start shooting. Running a few steps forward I can say that it proved useful to us as the first shooting day had been planned for the check-point. This is the most difficult scene in the whole film - lots of vehicles, animals, great number of actors both Arab and Russian - and all these in the burning hot desert. Add to the above the fact that the first day is always the most difficult during which people start working together and become accustomed. However exactly because of that delay with the cameras nobody paid any attention to those difficulties. The only objective that we all had was to shoot.

And I also liked very much the way the American actors reacted to the problems with customs. One day during dinner all five American actors took seats at my table and said that they understood our situation and were ready to work during days off and free of charge. Naturally we didn't make use of that opportunity - in such a case the rest of the group would be working during days off and that was physically very hard - still I was very pleased to see such understanding. That was how before we started shooting I was made sure that I had gathered not just some people who would help me to make the film but got together like-minded persons.