Arab American Short Film TALLAHASSEE
New York City, New York | Film Short
Drama, Family
TALLAHASSEE is a timely intervention on mental health and the stigma surrounding it in the Arab-American community and we need your help to finish this important film.
Arab American Short Film TALLAHASSEE
New York City, New York | Film Short
Drama, Family
Green Light
This campaign raised $2,400 for post-production. Follow the filmmaker to receive future updates on this project.
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TALLAHASSEE is a timely intervention on mental health and the stigma surrounding it in the Arab-American community and we need your help to finish this important film.
About The Project
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
In February 2020, just before the COVID-19 brought all of our lives screeching to a halt, we wrapped principal photography on the film Tallahassee, in Brooklyn, NY. Far from being set in central Florida, the title is a nod to the squeamishness around mental health in the Arab-American community. And who better to tell that story than clinical psychologist and author Hala Alyan, who wrote the screenplay and starred in this intimate family portrait.
The film is a collaboration between and a celebration of the talent in our community, uniting generations of artists from famed abstract painter Samia Halaby to prominent filmmaker Cherien Dabis (Amreeka, Ramy, Ozark) to rising-star director Darine Hotait to producer Ryah Aqel. In fact, every department head in our production was occupied by a woman of color-- an extreme rarity, even today, and a model for the future.
The film is a timely intervention on mental health and the stigma surrounding it in the Arab-American community and we need your help to finish this important film.
STORY
Tallahassee follows the story of Mira, an Arab American woman who on the day of her release from a psychiatric facility, in the aftermath of an accidental overdose, returns to her mother’s home in Brooklyn to attend her grandmother’s birthday only to discover that her sister has told the family that she was on a trip to Florida. Tallahassee is the portrayal of a young woman’s re-entry into the world, a meditation on the enormous task of life after grief.
WHERE WE ARE NOW
We were extremely lucky to shoot our film when we did, as many other productions were derailed by COVID-19. Now, instead, we are in the midst of our editing phase known as “post-production” with the goal of entering Tallahassee in this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
In order to meet their deadline of September 14th, 2020, we need to raise the funds to be able to finish the film. Your support is so crucial during this stage.
Post-production is what takes raw footage and elevates it into a professional-quality film. Editing, sound design, scoring, and coloring-- these are all essential steps to having a completed work. On top of that, there are submission fees for festivals, advertising and marketing costs, and much more. This is the money we now need to fundraise, so that we can fairly compensate our post-production team.
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Post-Production Sound
Costs $1,000
This will support the film's sound design, allowing us to have an original score and quality audio
Color grading
Costs $1,000
Color grading is the process of enhancing the appearance of an image to support the story
Marketing & Publicity
Costs $1,000
We want our film to be seen! This will pay for festival submissions, magazine placements, and more.
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
DARINE HOTAIT, DIRECTOR
Darine Hotait is an Arab American published author, screenwriter, film director and the founder of Cinephilia Productions. Her award-winning films can be seen on SundanceTV, AMC Networks, BBC Channel, ShortsTV and at over a hundred international film festivals. She is the recipient of the prestigious New York Council on the Arts Artist Award, the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, the AFAC Grant, a Goethe Award nomination and an EMMY Blu Ribbon nomination. Her work has been supported by Cannes’ International Scriptwriters’ Pavilion at Cannes Film Festival, the Independent Film Project in New York and Sundance Institute. She is an advisor for New York’s leading arts organization NYFA and a writing consultant for FFFMed Residency. She is currently developing her narrative feature film Like Salt.
HALA ALYAN, WRITER
Hala Alyan is a Palestinian American writer and clinical psychologist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Guernica and elsewhere. Her poetry collections have won the Arab American Book Award and the Crab Orchard Series. Her debut novel Salt Houses was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2017, and was the winner of the Arab American Book Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Her newest poetry collection The Twenty-Ninth Year was recently published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
RYAH AQEL, PRODUCER
Ryah Aqel was born to a Palestinian family and grew up in Michigan. She is a filmmaker, writer, and cultural producer interested in the relationship between indigenous communities, identity and land, in Palestine and beyond. She holds a BA in politics and Middle Eastern Studies (University of Michigan) and an MA in Near Eastern Studies (New York University). Aqel was a 2019 Sundance Institute Knight fellow.
MUNIR ATALLA, CO-PRODUCER
Munir Atalla is a filmmaker and producer based in Brooklyn, New York. He is currently completing an MFA in Creative Film Production at Columbia University. He was most recently employed by PBS’s premier documentary series FRONTLINE. Munir has credits on Emmy-nominated segments of Dateline, where he worked as an Associate Producer on long- form, investigative video reports. He is a frequent contributor of original video to NBCNews.com where his pieces have gotten over 5 million views.
BASSEMA YOUSSEF, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
Bassema Yousef is a strategy and management consultant who currently specializes in program and community development and outreach. She has more than a decade of experience working in international security, foreign policy, human rights, strategic planning and communications. Her passion for social entrepreneurship, philanthropy, and interfaith dialogue through the arts led to partnerships in a wide variety of groundbreaking works that include the first-ever Muslim Festival in New York City and actor Aasif Mandvi’s original comedy web series, Halal in the Family, which was developed to counter anti-Muslim bigotry. Bassema studied and received her Masters at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs focused on public and social policy management with a Middle East regional focus. Prior to joining the International Rescue Committee, she worked in different capacities with Al Jazeera America, Booz Allen Hamilton, in addition to the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Moore & Associate, and the Permanent Observer Mission of the State of Palestine to the United Nations. Additionally, Bassema worked as an assistant project manager for a leading U.S.-based architectural firm, Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill LLP, where she helped diversify its business outreach and development in the Middle East. Bassema earned her B.A. in Government and Middle Eastern Studies from Smith College and completed coursework at the American University of Cairo. She is a first-generation Arab-American with family roots in Palestine and Lebanon and has volunteered with the Synergos Middle East and North Africa Social Entrepreneurship division, Seeds of Peace, Palestinian Children Relief Fund, and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. Bassema is also a permanent Board Member of NaTakallam, a social enterprise focused on pairing displaced persons with students around the world for language practice over Skype.
Current Team
Incentives
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
In February 2020, just before the COVID-19 brought all of our lives screeching to a halt, we wrapped principal photography on the film Tallahassee, in Brooklyn, NY. Far from being set in central Florida, the title is a nod to the squeamishness around mental health in the Arab-American community. And who better to tell that story than clinical psychologist and author Hala Alyan, who wrote the screenplay and starred in this intimate family portrait.
The film is a collaboration between and a celebration of the talent in our community, uniting generations of artists from famed abstract painter Samia Halaby to prominent filmmaker Cherien Dabis (Amreeka, Ramy, Ozark) to rising-star director Darine Hotait to producer Ryah Aqel. In fact, every department head in our production was occupied by a woman of color-- an extreme rarity, even today, and a model for the future.
The film is a timely intervention on mental health and the stigma surrounding it in the Arab-American community and we need your help to finish this important film.
STORY
Tallahassee follows the story of Mira, an Arab American woman who on the day of her release from a psychiatric facility, in the aftermath of an accidental overdose, returns to her mother’s home in Brooklyn to attend her grandmother’s birthday only to discover that her sister has told the family that she was on a trip to Florida. Tallahassee is the portrayal of a young woman’s re-entry into the world, a meditation on the enormous task of life after grief.
WHERE WE ARE NOW
We were extremely lucky to shoot our film when we did, as many other productions were derailed by COVID-19. Now, instead, we are in the midst of our editing phase known as “post-production” with the goal of entering Tallahassee in this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
In order to meet their deadline of September 14th, 2020, we need to raise the funds to be able to finish the film. Your support is so crucial during this stage.
Post-production is what takes raw footage and elevates it into a professional-quality film. Editing, sound design, scoring, and coloring-- these are all essential steps to having a completed work. On top of that, there are submission fees for festivals, advertising and marketing costs, and much more. This is the money we now need to fundraise, so that we can fairly compensate our post-production team.
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Post-Production Sound
Costs $1,000
This will support the film's sound design, allowing us to have an original score and quality audio
Color grading
Costs $1,000
Color grading is the process of enhancing the appearance of an image to support the story
Marketing & Publicity
Costs $1,000
We want our film to be seen! This will pay for festival submissions, magazine placements, and more.
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
DARINE HOTAIT, DIRECTOR
Darine Hotait is an Arab American published author, screenwriter, film director and the founder of Cinephilia Productions. Her award-winning films can be seen on SundanceTV, AMC Networks, BBC Channel, ShortsTV and at over a hundred international film festivals. She is the recipient of the prestigious New York Council on the Arts Artist Award, the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, the AFAC Grant, a Goethe Award nomination and an EMMY Blu Ribbon nomination. Her work has been supported by Cannes’ International Scriptwriters’ Pavilion at Cannes Film Festival, the Independent Film Project in New York and Sundance Institute. She is an advisor for New York’s leading arts organization NYFA and a writing consultant for FFFMed Residency. She is currently developing her narrative feature film Like Salt.
HALA ALYAN, WRITER
Hala Alyan is a Palestinian American writer and clinical psychologist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Guernica and elsewhere. Her poetry collections have won the Arab American Book Award and the Crab Orchard Series. Her debut novel Salt Houses was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2017, and was the winner of the Arab American Book Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Her newest poetry collection The Twenty-Ninth Year was recently published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
RYAH AQEL, PRODUCER
Ryah Aqel was born to a Palestinian family and grew up in Michigan. She is a filmmaker, writer, and cultural producer interested in the relationship between indigenous communities, identity and land, in Palestine and beyond. She holds a BA in politics and Middle Eastern Studies (University of Michigan) and an MA in Near Eastern Studies (New York University). Aqel was a 2019 Sundance Institute Knight fellow.
MUNIR ATALLA, CO-PRODUCER
Munir Atalla is a filmmaker and producer based in Brooklyn, New York. He is currently completing an MFA in Creative Film Production at Columbia University. He was most recently employed by PBS’s premier documentary series FRONTLINE. Munir has credits on Emmy-nominated segments of Dateline, where he worked as an Associate Producer on long- form, investigative video reports. He is a frequent contributor of original video to NBCNews.com where his pieces have gotten over 5 million views.
BASSEMA YOUSSEF, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
Bassema Yousef is a strategy and management consultant who currently specializes in program and community development and outreach. She has more than a decade of experience working in international security, foreign policy, human rights, strategic planning and communications. Her passion for social entrepreneurship, philanthropy, and interfaith dialogue through the arts led to partnerships in a wide variety of groundbreaking works that include the first-ever Muslim Festival in New York City and actor Aasif Mandvi’s original comedy web series, Halal in the Family, which was developed to counter anti-Muslim bigotry. Bassema studied and received her Masters at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs focused on public and social policy management with a Middle East regional focus. Prior to joining the International Rescue Committee, she worked in different capacities with Al Jazeera America, Booz Allen Hamilton, in addition to the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Moore & Associate, and the Permanent Observer Mission of the State of Palestine to the United Nations. Additionally, Bassema worked as an assistant project manager for a leading U.S.-based architectural firm, Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill LLP, where she helped diversify its business outreach and development in the Middle East. Bassema earned her B.A. in Government and Middle Eastern Studies from Smith College and completed coursework at the American University of Cairo. She is a first-generation Arab-American with family roots in Palestine and Lebanon and has volunteered with the Synergos Middle East and North Africa Social Entrepreneurship division, Seeds of Peace, Palestinian Children Relief Fund, and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. Bassema is also a permanent Board Member of NaTakallam, a social enterprise focused on pairing displaced persons with students around the world for language practice over Skype.