To heck with convention. I made a short film and I want to let people see it. Which they should, because it is good. So here it is. It is called Re:Move and it was premiered at the Doha Tribeca Film Festival.
Convention says I should keep my film away from the internet for a year, whilst I schlep around the North Norwich Genre and Tractor Film Fest and the DiViZeFesten (the German festival for films shot on digital video with zero budget). Yes, I made up those festivals, but you get my point. In a world where the internet serves me up news that tyrants want hidden, supplies a surplus of political campaign inanity, offers copious celebrity nudity, delivers reams of commercial degradation and incessantly erodes my privacy, then it is very peculiar that my film is the one thing that is not supposed to be shared. Why make a film, if not to be seen?
The film industry rationale for internet hostility comes in two forms. First, there is an old-fashioned superiority complex. Because YouTube is full of kittens falling off TVs, then everything on YouTube must be bad. The argument has some merit, but the film industry cannot point fingers if it still lets Seth Rogen write screenplays and appear in front of camera after The Green Hornet’s double-whammy of awfulness. Given the choice, I would watch the kittens and throw a sack of Rogen into the river. Second, there is the argument that ordinary people cannot be trusted to decide what they like. Because ordinary people cannot be trusted, they will give each other poor advice. For example, they might tell each other that The Green Hornet was awful, even though it cost rather a lot to make. Instead of trusting your taste, I am supposed to rely on the judgement of the tiny elite that decides festival schedules and awards. Do not get me wrong, I have no irrational grudge against this elite. Their taste is probably equally as bad as yours. But if their taste is better than yours, then what difference would it make? Ordinary people will still end up watching the film, no matter what route it gets to them. So watch the film and tell other people to watch it, if you liked it. And if you do not like it, just tell other people to watch it anyway, so they understand what you are talking about when you start bitching about how bad it is.
If you are still reading this, and not watching the film, then you should learn to take a hint. Or maybe you have seen the film already and want to find out more about it. Hmmm… fair enough. I would have put all the film info on IMDb but the people who run IMDb always mess up the film’s IMDb page which defeats the point of visiting it, which means there is no point updating it, which leads to a vicious circle that makes a mockery of the ‘Db’ bit of IMDb’s name. So, in short, the low-down is as follows… The exotic and talented Suzannah Mirghani was the star, ably supported by the cosmopolitan cast of Rabih Altair, Heather Schwaberow and Ching Siew Hua. Daniella Mirghani Poppeleer (Suzannah’s niece) played the enigmatic girl and Simon Hewitt was the voiceover father. Ahmed Elmokhtar and Lourica Halteh split DoP duties, each bringing their own vision to the very different scenes they handled. Ashiq Abdul Raheem, Mohamed Al-Mahmeed, Mohamed Magdi and Noor Ahmad were the faithful crew for the shoot, which took place in a variety of apartment buildings in Doha, and on the road from Doha to Al-Khor. Finally, the tireless Robert Nield deserves unending praise for many a long night sculpting the film in the edit suite.
For the evolution of the screenplay, you can work backwards from here. As for the film itself, the high-def Halfthoughts version is hosted by Dailymotion; you can also watch the film from the Re:Move Dailymotion page. If you prefer Vimeo as a video host, you can both see and download an MP4 version of the film from the Re:Move page on Vimeo. And if you prefer YouTube, then I had better not encourage you. That site is only good for kittens falling off tellys. Oh, alright then, here it is on YouTube.
And that is all I want to say about Re:Move. Really. I never want to talk or write about it ever again. I made a film to be seen, not so I could talk about it. Which re:minds me to re:mind you… have you seen Re:Move yet? If not, you really should.
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