blue veil
Experimental | 6 min | 2021 | HD
Audio language: Spanish Subtitles language: English Audio Description: available
In the wake of 9/11, a First-Gen Muslim teenager discovers her mother’s record collection. The songs reflect her parent's migration stories to America, and serve as a roadmap to Amina’s identity. As music unlocks memories, Amina remembers who she.Through the intersection of music and memory, this hybrid film blurs the lines between surveillance and archival repair. It is indiscernible to know “who is watching who,” but in a world that is watching, Amina chooses how she sees herself.
Dedicated to my ancestors, loved ones
and a generation of youth silenced by
Islamophobia. This is a prayer for the
hearts surveilled. May our truth(s) breathe.
credits:
In order of apperance
Marina Ochoa
Etzel Ochoa
Kari Ramírez
Carlos Ortez
Ismael Salazar-Lopez
Writer, Director, Editor
Cinematography
Shireen Alihaji
Producer
Jaime Ballesteros
Camera Operator
Jaime Ballesteros
Ernesto Calixto
Sound Designer
Estevan Carlos Benson
Score
Shireen Alihaji
Soundtrack
"Amina"
Estevan Carlos Benson
"Blue Prayer"
Shireen Alihaji
"Crickets"
Bernabé Bolaños
"Recordaré / In My Name" Remix
Bernabé Bolaños
Shireen Alihaji
Title Art
Bernabé Bolaños
Subtitles
Sofi Alihaji
Phoenix DCP
With Support From:
Islamic Scholarship Fund
Blue Veil Films
Xilitla Labs
Multimedia Militia
Este Archives
Mila Lazarevic
Dina Provatas
[12] PALM SPRINGS ART MUSEUM
[11] CINESOL FILM FESTIVAL
[10] NOFF 2022
[9] PFF 2022
[8] FEMME FRONTERAS 2022
[7] NYLFF 2022
[6] COAXIAL 2022
[5] LALIFF 2022
[4] PHLAFF 2022
[3] SFFILM 2022
[2] MENAFF 2021
[1] MIFF 2021
development:
This short film is a proof of concept for the feature length script Blue Veil.
The feature script was accepted to the Black List X Muslim List, Cannes List (Wscripted), Sundance Institute Latine Scholarship, NALIP Latino Media Market, published in the The Blue Print for Muslim Inclusion (Pillars Fund, Riz Ahmed / Left Handed Films, USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative) and nominated for the Cassian Elwes x Sundance Fellowship and The Chinonye Chukwu Emerging Writer Award. It became a SFFILM Rainin Grant Finalist, featured in The Reframe Resource and received Special Jury Recognition at the New Orleans Film Festival.
The project has been workshopped through The Gotham’s Owning it Challenges, Athena Writers Lab, Respectability Lab, Women in Film Mentoring program and Empowered Stories.
Feature Length Script and pitch deck available upon request.
Acknowledgment:
I wanted to give gratitude to work that has deeply affirmed and created space for projects like Blue Veil to exist.
Dr. Su'ad Abdul Khabeer
Muslim Cool: Race, Religion, and Hip Hop
in the United States
Umi's Archive
Dr. Philip Butler
Black Transhuman Liberation Theology
Vigilant Love
Services Not Surveillance
Barry Jenkins
The Gaze
W.E.B Du Bois
The Souls of Black Folk
Frantz Omar Fanon
Algeria Unveiled
The Counter-Memorias
Oral History Project
Studio Museum Harlem
Memories for the Future
Isabelle Hui Saldaña
Archival Repair: Shaping Collective History as Collective Future
The Mixed Fruit Project
Kiki Provatas
