Friday, January 1, 2016

Girl In A Glass Box





"The unconventional world of an aerial dancer turns up side down with the tragic death of her seven year old son."

Guilt. How the death of a loved one can change our lives for ever. How do you fix what can't be fixed? How do you face it? Make peace with it? Accept responsibility and find a way to live with it?  


Saturday, November 21, 2015

"The knowledge...

...that everyday there's something more to learn, something higher to reach, something new to see of others. Makes each day infinity precious.
Talent is an amalgam of high sensitivity; easy vulnerability; high sensory equipment; a vivid imagination as well as a griffon reality; the desire to communicate one's own experiences and sensations, to make one's self heard and seen."
-Uta Hagen

We have the need to create, to make journeys as artist. Because, we are constantly trying to get a better understanding of who we are. It's a need we are born with and not something we found on the way...

Saturday, November 7, 2015

Alice Miller...

has been my greatest reference when I create characters. She's my understatement behind every line. We are who we are for a reason. Humans are multidimensional. We have layers and layers of silence that makes us unique. So should every character in and out of page in order to be affective and generate emotions.

“In order to become whole we must try, in a long process, to discover our own personal truth, a truth that may cause pain before giving us a new sphere of freedom. If we choose instead to content ourselves with intellectual “wisdom,” we will remain in the sphere of illusion and self-deception.” 

-Alice Miller

"Those children who are beaten will in turn give beatings. Those who are intimidated will be intimidating. Those who are humiliated will impose humiliation. And those whose souls are murdered will murder."

-Alice Miller

And the quotes go on and on proving one thing. We are who we are based on our past and we do filter the world we live in through past experiences. So should every character from every prospective of storytelling. Of course we soul search, we accept, we evolve, we become a better version of ourselves. Hopefully we overcome our tragic flaw. Hopefully we break free... So should characters...

I choose to believe that we come back again and again until our souls get completed and the older I am getting the more I see it and feel it. And I can choose to incorporate it or not. 
The bottom line is you can have a so so structure wise story but if the world is multidimensional and the characters are layered. When you come from a place of truth you have a great film and an even stronger story to tell. 

Friday, February 15, 2013

"The heaviest impact of the work of art is in the guts. Art does not reason. It manhandles you and changes you"
- Lawrence Durrell

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Through The Red Doors...

Rania Khaliq, my little Rania...when Nikki told me about Manaal's film Through The Red Doors I was so deep into Olufemi that nothing could get me out of the Oli mode. I made it a point that the only character I will give life to will be Olufemi, even if it was my last one. I was polite so I said e-mail it to me. A rush of goose bumps invaded my body. To give life to a character that is at the top of her game, sitting on a throne all alone...her hard life and how she became so emotionally detached, how she got there and to top it all, she's in her late fifties, I have no wrinkles... To have to enter the screen with all that past, experiences I will never have. Let's face it I was not an immigrant that had to prostitute herself to save her mother who was ill and so on. Now how to you get there? That's a pretty dark place to tap into. Drove on Santa Monica blvd a lot, watched prostitutes, harsh reality. Spend all my time thinking about her, the way she eats, the way she thinks, the way she moves, the way she stares. Constantly wrote things down about her,  fictional, but  made sense to me, for example in my head she had two bedrooms, one she slept in and one she fucked and once she was done she said "you can show yourself out when you wake up"... Rania was everywhere, in my head and one night I went to Bar Marmont, was letting her go, thought I need to have a moment in my head, a Nansia moment...was having such an amazing time with friends, laughing , vibrating...on my way to the restroom while I was walking through that little dark hallway, I was touching the wall  with my fingertips and Amy Winehouse's song  "I am no good" came on, I looked up and my whole body language changed, I got her, she fall right into place. I was done with Bar Marmont for the evening, went home bought the song on iTunes and the rest is on screen... 


Through The Red Doors...

Friday, June 1, 2012

When people ask me...

what do I do, they get "I tell stories"...I consider myself a storyteller, not a writer, not a producer, not an actor and not an editor...Throughout life, my life I thought that I need it because I was born creative and it's a need creative people have, a vehicle they use to express themselves... Today, it hit me why I live my life in need of that, why I suffocate when I am not constantly working towards that...it's a personal journey of discovery, the little kid in me is running all excited with open arms and a big smile and says "mommy mommy look what I found!!!"...through human interaction every day I evolve, every day I discover something new about me and the world I live in... I need to make a full circle journey to have it register with in me what I have learned and where I am at...and I need to share it... it frees me from pain, it rejuvenates me...AND the most important thing I've learned is that I need a team to make it with...it makes it so much more gratifying...

Friday, November 4, 2011

Oli...

when the idea popped in my head last Christmas and played the whole story in my head...at least what I wanted to explore, share with the audience...the journey I wanted to make...I was told that scripts are not written in a month...I work 24/7, I get possessed...so I thought in my little head that we will make it happen in time zero...what happened four month later was, I completely lost perception of what was in the script and what was in my head...and a brilliant director came out of nowhere to advise me to close Final Draft and let it rest for a couple of months, forget all about it...so I did, got caught up with life, even lost interest on it...when we re-opened Olufemi a few month ago, supposedly to polish it...speechless...Olufemi got a life of her own, she took the direction she was meant to...very different script than the first drafts...But she's alive, she's universal and everyone can connect with her...so underneath our half a million$ costumes, the music and vividness of the 20s...the haunting images...there's a story...a journey...a truth...and I have to acknowledge that this would have never happened without the help of so many people, who asked questions, who helped me clarify what I want and where I am going...I am not your average person and I embrace it, is either you'll appreciate me or try and put me down...But I am at a place in my life that I know where I am going and I know what makes me good at what I do and now when I look back I understand, I get it...I have an amazing team of brilliant people, that I like to call family, people who don't treat it as a job...who live to make journeys...who want what I want...

Olufemi....


"In order to fall in love, you need to be open to love"


Olufemi is based on perception, we perceive the world we live in based on how we were programmed...


It is a timeless journey that explores and exploits the highs and lows of the intense physical attraction and emotional vulnerability between a man and a woman who have just met. Set in a large mansion, the meticulously maintained house and surrounding grounds set the tone for the type of life Olufemi has always lived in....



the choices we make decide the lives we live...

Olufemi chose to live in a world full of people alone...

OLUFEMI's concept