MVKA releases Lamya’s Poem (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) by Christopher Willis

UK label MVKA and non-profit Unity Productions Foundation have released Lamya’s Poem (Original Motion Picture soundtrack) by the Emmy-winning composer Christopher Willis. Lamya’s Poem is the tale of a 12-year-old Syrian girl Lamya who is forced to flee Aleppo amid a period of grave danger. She finds solace, and more, in the words of the celebrated 13th Century poet, Rumi.

Lamya’s Poem is a full-length animated feature written and directed by cross-cultural filmmaker Alex Kronemer and produced by Syrian born-American filmmaker Sam Kadi (The Citizen). Watch the official
trailer HERE.

The cast features Millie Davis (Wonder) and Mena Massoud (Aladdin). Having premiered at the 60th Annecy International Animation Film Festival, the film tells the tale of 12-year-old Syrian girl Lamya who is forced to flee as war closes in on her family home in Aleppo. Among the few possessions she takes with her is a book by Sufi mystic poet Rumi, given to her by a kindly tutor.

Facing grave danger, Lamya finds more than just solace in Rumi’s words. Tumbling into a mysterious and haunting dream world she meets the poet himself, as a young boy running away from violence in his own time, the year 1221. Together they travel through a fantastical land, battling the monsters that follow them from the real world, as Lamya helps young Rumi find his calling and write the poem that 800 years later will save her life.

Playing over the film’s opening credits, first single ‘Fireflies’ offers a graceful introduction to Willis’s unique, imaginative score that interleaves lavish, melancholy set pieces (‘The Dream City’, ‘The Parable of the Serpent’) with disorienting threat (‘Storm Clouds’, ‘Jalal and the Spear’) that sometimes erupts into violence (‘The Attack’, ‘Fighting Hate’). In conceiving the soundtrack, composer Christopher Willis brought together chamber strings, harp, soprano, reed flute and electronic sound design that draws on audio recordings of the sounds of modern warfare, including bombs, tanks and breaking glass.

Although Lamya’s story takes place in a world of conflict and survival that is all too real, we often escape with her into a nocturnal fantasy land, a place of dreams whose events echo those of her real life, and it’s in this dream landscape that the movie begins. As ‘Fireflies’ plays, we see Lamya happily amusing herself in a mysterious expanse, with the luminous insects dancing around her, oblivious to the dark world of shadows that lurks beyond. The plucked notes of the harp echo outwards like the glow of the fireflies, while the string chamber group introduces us to Lamya and her delicate but expansive imagination.

‘The Attack’ is an example of the more jarring atmospheres Willis can conjure, soundtracking a particularly harrowing moment in the film while nightmarish forces are closing in on the home Lamya previously deemed safe and ordinary. Willis creates a soundscape as disorientating as the chaos Lamya is involuntarily plunged into, as the ground beneath her feet begins to crumble, along with the foundations of life as she knew it.

Later, ‘The Dream City’ exists as a fragment of hope for Lamya. Beginning with a small string chamber group, the song soundtracks Lamya’s dreams of an ethereal landscape in which she meets Rumi himself as a boy of her own age. Ascending a high ridge, the pair find themselves gazing in awe of a fantastical, futuristic city that represents all that is good and civilised in this world. As the song swells to a wide texture of string orchestra and synth pads, the pair revel in a tragically brief moment of optimism, where they’re free to simply admire the city’s sheer brilliance, before it later falls under attack.

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Willis says, “I learned a really important lesson from the filmmakers on Lamya’s Poem: movies made in Syria by Syrians don’t have soundtracks full of Middle Eastern tropes, the way many Hollywood movies set in the Middle East do. And one thing we wanted above all was for this film to resonate with Middle Eastern audiences. Any culturally specific instrument should earn its place in the soundtrack.”

“In later tracks, the ancient Persian ney is featured prominently – played by Hossein Omoumi, one of the world’s foremost performers on the ney – representing Rumi and his poetry. However, ‘Fireflies’ is not about Rumi but about Lamya. Her story should feel not so much rooted in one place as universal and timeless. The chamber string group I settled on felt like it suited her: it has the same size and texture as her flights of fancy. And the harp to me has a poetic quality that transcends borders. In many, many cultures, you hear a harp and you know a tale is about to unfold.”

With a music PhD from Cambridge University and having trained at the Royal Academy of Music, Willis is the artist behind the award-winning soundtracks for The Death of Stalin and The Personal History of David Copperfield, both directed by Armando Iannucci. He co-composed the music for HBO’s Veep, which ran for seven seasons, and has worked on several Disney projects, including the much-loved Mickey Mouse Shorts and music for Disney theme park ride Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway.

It was another cartoon project, Charlie Brooker’s interactive Netflix show Cat Burglar, that won Willis the first ever Children’s and Family Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Direction and Composition for an Animated Program. His eclectic body of work also includes Apple TV+’s Schmigadoon!, Disney Junior’s The Lion Guard and Netflix’s latest series of Black Mirror. In 2021, he worked with the London Symphony Orchestra to breathe new life into some of Eva Cassidy’s most treasured songs. The album, I Can Only Be Me, was released in March 2023 on Blix Street Records.