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In this exclusive conversation, documentarian JEFFREY ROTH discusses THE MAN WITH THE HAT and documenting Dr. Zahi Hawass, the fragile stewardship of Egypt\u2019s antiquities, and the human stories hidden inside ancient stone.<\/p>\n
THE MAN WITH THE HAT<\/strong><\/a> isn\u2019t just a documentary about Egypt\u2014it\u2019s a documentary about belonging to Egypt. Directed by Jeffrey Roth and co-written by Roth and Stephen Beck, who both serve as Executive Producers, the film is built around a simple but powerful idea: if you\u2019re going to understand the grandeur of 4,000 years of civilization, you first need to understand the man who has devoted his life to protecting it. And not as an academic figure pinned beneath a title, but as a human being with roots, wounds, pride, humor, and an almost combustible sense of purpose.<\/p>\n That\u2019s where Dr. Zahi Hawass comes in\u2014world-renowned Egyptologist, guardian of antiquities, and the \u201creal-life Indiana Jones\u201d who has long been the public face guiding viewers from studio talking heads to the real artifacts on the ground. But Roth\u2019s film isn\u2019t interested in using Hawass as a familiar shortcut. It\u2019s interested in the question Roth couldn\u2019t shake: Who is he, really? The aura is undeniable, the hat iconic, the presence larger than life\u2014but the heartbeat of this film is personal.<\/p>\n Roth, a documentarian drawn to character and human-interest storytelling, describes his process as beginning with the person, always. \u201cThis is the fourth feature-length documentary film that I\u2019ve made,\u201d he says, \u201cand the one thing that I\u2026 my style\u2026 is the human interest story of whatever subject I\u2019m doing.\u201d He\u2019s done Apollo astronauts, and a film about U.S. presidents and vice presidents that focused not on partisan heat, but on relationships. For him, the subject has to be someone he can live with for years\u2014because these projects aren\u2019t weekend flings. \u201cYou do spend two or three years on these things,\u201d he explains, \u201cand you better like what you\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n Then Hawass appeared on a computer screen\u2014staring back like a challenge. Roth remembers the boyhood fascination with ancient Egypt, the TV programs, and Hawass always there as the connecting thread\u2014present, charismatic, but not fully known. \u201cHe has created this aura, this character,\u201d Roth says, \u201cthis real-life Indiana Jones figure. But who is he, right? Yeah, that\u2019s where my interest started.\u201d Roth sent an email. And in what feels like the first brush of movie magic, he got a response almost immediately: \u201cMeet me in Salt Lake City next week.\u201d<\/p>\n A week later, Roth sat down with Hawass at a hotel. Ten minutes into the meeting, Hawass was already grabbing a pen and mapping out a route like a man who lives in motion: \u201cAll right, we\u2019re going to go here, here, here and here.\u201d Six or seven weeks later, Roth and his small team were in Egypt filming.<\/p>\n What emerges from that leap of faith is a film that doesn\u2019t treat Egypt as a museum\u2014sterile, distant, sealed behind glass. THE MAN WITH THE HAT makes Egypt feel alive: the ancient standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the modern. Drone shots reveal the centuries coexisting\u2014temples and artifacts pressed against high-rise buildings, old stones and new cities inhabiting the same frame. It\u2019s a deliberate visual philosophy: awe, yes\u2014but also context. The past isn\u2019t \u201cback then.\u201d It\u2019s right here, still present, still vulnerable, still fought over.<\/p>\n That vulnerability becomes part of the story as the film traces the historical forces that shaped the preservation battle. The documentary notes how Napoleon was among the first Europeans to travel through Egypt with scientists documenting antiquities\u2014maps, drawings, records\u2014an early attempt to catalog what stood. Yet real global obsession didn\u2019t ignite until Howard Carter opened King Tut\u2019s tomb in 1922, and the resulting surge of interest helped fuel pillaging, raiding, and the ongoing fight over who owns Egyptian history. Hawass\u2019s mantra\u2014delivered with the insistence of a man who has seen what happens when history is treated like a souvenir\u2014lands like a thesis statement: \u201cPreservation, conservation, conservation.\u201d (So important, he repeats \u201cconservation\u201d twice.)<\/p>\n Roth\u2019s camera follows Hawass through sites that are never random. That\u2019s key. This isn\u2019t a travelogue of greatest hits. As Roth explains, \u201cEvery place that we take him to\u2026 is personal, or he\u2019s had some dealing with that site\u2026 we don\u2019t take you to random sites and then just say, okay, well, what\u2019s this?\u201d Hawass leads the way in first person\u2014on dig sites, in voiceover, in memory. He\u2019s not merely explaining Egypt; he\u2019s speaking of it as something intimate and essential. \u201cThe Nile is a source of life,\u201d Hawass says. \u201cThe Sphinx is a living stone.\u201d He doesn\u2019t describe antiquities as objects. He talks about them like relatives.<\/p>\n And the film leans into what makes Hawass more than a public figure: his origin story. He grew up in a village along the Nile in a family of farmers\u2014\u201ceducated farmers,\u201d as he proudly frames it. There were six children. His father believed in education, in character, in resilience. Hawass carries those mantras like internal scripture: have passion, be honest, be strong. When Hawass speaks of his father, and then of his mother, the film\u2019s tone shifts into something quietly reverent. These aren\u2019t side notes. They\u2019re the foundation of the man who now stands at the center of Egypt\u2019s cultural identity.<\/p>\n Roth\u2019s greatest strength is understanding that a documentary about ancient wonders only truly sings when it becomes human. Hawass personalizes everything\u2014present, past, sacred, ordinary\u2014until the viewer feels the stakes at a gut level. The pain he expresses when describing an obelisk \u201cmissing\u201d its counterpart\u2014because one stands in Paris\u2014lands as something deeper than historical trivia. It\u2019s an ache about displacement. About fragments torn from home. About identity scattered across the world in museum glass.<\/p>\n That theme\u2014roots and home\u2014threads through the film like the Nile itself. Hawass doesn\u2019t just fight to protect Egypt\u2019s antiquities because it\u2019s his job. He fights because, in his eyes, these are the roots of all of us. This is where civilization breathes from. In that sense, the documentary becomes less about tombs and more about custodianship: who guards the past, who profits from it, and what it costs to preserve it in the present.\u00a0\u00a0And preserving it is not cinematic fantasy. It\u2019s gritty. It\u2019s bureaucratic. It\u2019s physically brutal.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce you say go and he agrees to do it,\u201d Roth admits, \u201cthat\u2019s where your problems start\u2026 and they don\u2019t end.\u201d Egypt isn\u2019t a place where you show up with a truck of gear and a film permit smile. \u201cYou can\u2019t just show up. You have to have a fixer,\u201d he explains. The fixer becomes the bridge between the production and everything else: government permissions, sites, schedules, and access. Gear is restricted\u2014serial numbers logged\u2014so the mandate becomes survival filmmaking: travel light or don\u2019t travel at all.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s time. Or the lack of it. Some sites grant access measured in minutes, not days. In Ramses II\u2019s tomb, a location not open to the public, Roth\u2019s crew had one hour. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to be on your toes,\u201d he says. \u201cSometimes the government will only give you an hour.\u201d The film\u2019s urgency isn\u2019t manufactured; it\u2019s baked into the reality of the shoot.<\/p>\n That pressure is part of what Roth loves about documentaries. \u201cFor me,\u201d he says, \u201ca lot of times you do have to figure it out then. And that\u2019s the challenge\u2026 that\u2019s the movie magic\u2026 finding as opposed to writing it here, and then forcing your will when you\u2019re there.\u201d And that attitude\u2014openness, improvisation, willingness to chase what appears\u2014leads to the film\u2019s most haunting and unforgettable moment.<\/p>\n The most powerful discovery in THE MAN WITH THE HAT wasn\u2019t planned.\u00a0\u00a0It was whispered by a local man in Saqqara while the crew was filming elsewhere: \u201cOh, mummy down there.\u201d Roth remembers the confusion\u2014what mummy?\u2014and then the decision to follow. What they found was astonishing in its starkness: what they believe is a family of five mummies, \u201cjust wrapped in the sand with no coffin, no nothing else.\u201d No spectacle. No gold. No pageantry. Just the quiet, eerie intimacy of bodies laid together\u2014human history stripped to its simplest truth.<\/p>\n Roth calls it \u201cthe most fascinating thing in the film,\u201d and he\u2019s clear it could never have been scripted. \u201cThese are things you can never write in advance, because they\u2019re the moments that you find while you\u2019re there.\u201d He structures the sequence like a cinematic refrain: first Hawass on stage holding a canvas image of the five mummies, then the film cuts to the real burial site, and later circles back to Hawass discussing that image with his granddaughter\u2014an emotional triptych that binds discovery, documentation, and legacy into one sequence. Science meets family. History meets tenderness. Preservation becomes personal, again.<\/p>\n The physical production mirrors that intensity. Roth describes being lowered sixty feet into tombs where the crew must remain unseen, gear minimized, and light managed in suffocating spaces: \u201cThey drop you down 60 feet in a hole. You don\u2019t know what\u2019s down there yet\u2026 you\u2019ve got to bring small cameras, small gear, small lights.\u201d Local workers\u2014experienced, protective, no-nonsense\u2014wave them off: \u201cNo, no, don\u2019t bring that one.\u201d The crew contorts into unnatural positions; muscles pulled, bodies sore. And because reshoots in these environments are nearly impossible, redundancy becomes a lifeline\u2014GoPros, iPhones, anything that can capture additional angles without slowing the process.<\/p>\n Even sound becomes a minefield. Only a limited number of people are permitted in certain tombs. Sometimes the sound mixer is barred as \u201cnon-essential,\u201d forcing wireless setups prone to interference. When the reality can\u2019t be cleanly captured on-site, Roth re-records select lines later\u2014but he refuses to over-control Hawass\u2019s delivery. \u201cI\u2019ve never asked him to repeat anything,\u201d Roth says. \u201cIf that\u2019s the way he says it, that\u2019s how he says it.\u201d He wants the natural rise of a thought\u2014the unpolished truth of the moment\u2014because Hawass\u2019s authenticity is the film\u2019s engine.<\/p>\n Visually, the film matches the scale of its subject. Claustrophobic tunnels under Cleopatra\u2019s domain give way to sweeping aerials of the Lost Golden City, revealing serpentine walls from above before drifting closer as Hawass explains their ancient engineering logic\u2014how their curves resist flooding. Handheld street footage in Cairo pulses with modern life; steadier movement inside Hawass\u2019s former home feels intimate, lived-in, personal. Roth calls it a planned \u201cjourney\u201d\u2014not an academic lecture, not something you watch in school, but a film designed to move with emotion and momentum.<\/p>\n Music becomes another layer of authenticity. Composer Mark Kilian, working with Roth for the third time, came aboard early\u2014between the first and second Egypt trips\u2014to spot scenes and understand the film\u2019s rhythm. Kilian even traveled to Cairo to record with local musicians using Egyptian instruments. The result isn\u2019t just a beautiful score; it\u2019s a score with a pulse that feels rooted in place, giving the documentary texture and identity rather than generic \u201cregion\u201d flavor.<\/p>\n Roth is also candid about what independence means. It gives freedom\u2014but not ease. \u201cWe\u2019re independent,\u201d he says, \u201cand that\u2019s not always a good thing.\u201d Still, he made Hawass a promise: \u201cI\u2019m going to tell this story the way that I want to tell it, without anybody telling me how to tell it.\u201d The edit took roughly two years\u2014sometimes paused for trips, sometimes driven forward by voiceover sessions, sometimes slowed by the sheer logistics of shaping huge material into a coherent narrative. But Roth speaks about the struggle the way good filmmakers always do: as part of the joy. \u201cWhy make it easy?\u201d he asks. \u201cThen it\u2019s boring.\u201d<\/p>\n If the film is ultimately about preservation, it also preserves something else: the labor of preservation itself. The workers at the sites\u2014often treated as background in other documentaries\u2014register here as participants in legacy, proud of their culture, eager to find, protect, and reveal. Roth even dedicates the film to them in the end credits, honoring \u201ctheir tireless dedication to bringing their history to the world.\u201d<\/p>\n That sentiment points to what Roth says he learned making THE MAN WITH THE HAT: to keep his cool, to go with the flow, to accept that control is an illusion in a foreign land where every rule and regulation can shift. But more than that, he says, the experience humbled him. In Hollywood, he works in make-believe. In Egyp,t he was working at the pyramids, in the Valley of the Kings\u2014places so monumental it feels unreal until you remember: this isn\u2019t a set. It\u2019s the weight of actual history. Real stone. Real legacy. Real responsibility. And even the smallest movement of a camera rig comes with a reverent calculation: you don\u2019t want to clip a sarcophagus. You don\u2019t want to take a \u201cchunk off\u201d something that has survived millennia.<\/p>\n By the time the documentary closes, it feels like Roth has done what Hawass spends his life attempting: he\u2019s made people care. Not as passive admirers of ancient splendor, but as witnesses to how fragile access can be\u2014restricted permissions, cramped shafts, political tremors, and the unpredictable grace of a local pointing into darkness and saying, almost casually, there\u2019s history down there.<\/p>\n In the end, THE MAN WITH THE HAT functions as portrait and time capsule\u2014magical, mysterious, jaw-dropping, and educational, yes\u2014but made personal because Hawass makes it personal. Roth captures Egypt\u2019s immensity, but he also captures the beating heart inside it: one man\u2019s devotion to the idea that antiquities are not trophies, not commodities, not props. They are home. They are roots. They are life.<\/p>\n And because Roth embraces both the planned and the accidental\u2014the aerial grandeur and the unrepeatable moment of \u201cmummy down there\u201d\u2014the film doesn\u2019t just show what Egypt once was. It preserves what it is right now, and the humans fighting to keep it from slipping away.<\/p>\n by debbie elias, exclusive interview 01\/14\/2026<\/p>\n <\/p>\n THE MAN WITH THE HAT is available to rent or buy on 1\/20\/2026:\u00a0https:\/\/geni.us\/themanwiththehat<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n