blue veil

Experimental   |  6 min  |  2021  |  HD

Audio language: Spanish  Subtitles language: English  Audio Description: available

Amina struggles with the gaze of Islamophobia, from surveillance to the 24-hour news cycle, until she discovers and begins sampling her mother’s tapes. The songs reflect her parent's migration stories and serve as a roadmap to her identity. 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.

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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.

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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

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Phoenix DCP

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With Support From:

Islamic Scholarship Fund

Blue Veil Films

Xilitla Labs

Multimedia Militia 

Este Archives

Mila Lazarevic

Dina Provatas

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Coaxial
2022

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 is currently a finalist in consideration for the SFFILM Rainin Grant.

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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.

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Acknowledgment:

I wanted to give gratitude to work that has deeply affirmed and created space for projects like Blue Veil to exist.

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Dr. Su'ad Abdul Khabeer

Muslim Cool: Race, Religion, and Hip Hop 

in the United States

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Umi's Archive

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Dr. Philip Butler

Black Transhuman Liberation Theology

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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 

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The Mixed Fruit Project

Kiki Provatas