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Logline

A Black woman develops a deep connection to an Arab man who works in her neighborhood bodega in the midst of an unexpected tragedy. Based on the award-winning feature script, Noor.

Synopsis

Originally conceived as a short story, Noor has undergone several revisions towards its current iteration as a high-stakes, timely romance with subtle commentary on human rights and cross-cultural resistance to authority.

The feature script for Noor (which the short film is based on) is 15 years in the making. The writer, Nijla Mu’min, was one of 10 writers selected for the 2014 Sundance Institute’s Screenwriters Intensive for this script, where she had the opportunity to take part in a generative writing workshop and receive feedback from Sundance Advisors. She also won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Screenplay at the 2014 Urbanworld Film Festival, presented by BET, where she directed an excerpt of the script with actors, to a very warm reception. The script was also chosen for the 2021 Black List Muslim List and Nijla recently presented the short script at Blackstar Film Festival’s William and Louise Greaves Seminar at Stanford University.

We are actively trying to complete post-production on the short film. Funds raised here will go toward sound design, music, and color correction. We have also begun the process of shopping the feature script around, in hopes of finding a partner that can help finance it, using the short film as a proof of concept. We are hoping this film will be the follow-up to Nijla’s first feature, Jinn.
 

Meet the Filmmakers

Nijla Mu’min — Writer/Director
Nijla Mu’min is a writer and filmmaker from the East Bay Area. Her work is informed by poetry, music, fiction, and dance. In 2014, she was selected for the Sundance Institute Screenwriters Intensive, and she was the winner of the Best Screenplay award at the Urbanworld Film Festival, for her script Noor. Her debut feature film, Jinn, premiered at the 2018 SXSW Film Festival, where she won the Special Jury Award for Screenwriting.

She’s directed episodes of Queen Sugar, Insecure, Swagger, Wu-Tang: An American Saga, All Rise, and East New York. She is a graduate of CalArts MFA Film Directing and Creative Writing Programs, and UC Berkeley, where studied in June Jordan’s Poetry for the People Program.

Avril Speaks — Producer
Avril Speaks has been carving out her path as a bold, innovative storyteller for years, not only as a Producer and Director but also as a film mentor and advocate through Film Independent, the Sundance Institute, and Distribution Advocates, and formerly as a professor at Howard University. Avril has produced several award-winning films including Jinn, which premiered at SXSW and won Special Jury Recognition for Writing, Hosea, and the South African film African America, which was nominated for an NAACP Image Award, four African Movie Academy Awards and was acquired by Netflix. She also produced the documentary Black America Is…, which premiered at the Afrikana Film Festival and won Best Feature Documentary at various film festivals.

As a director and showrunner, Avril has worked on docu-series such as Uprooted on HBOMax, Keep This Between Us on Freeform/Hulu, and Files of the Unexplained, which debuted as the #1 show on Netflix. Avril is a recipient of the inaugural Dear Producer Award, the Sundance Momentum Fellowship, and is a recent recipient of the Film Independent/Netflix Amplifier Fellowship. She is a recurring creative advisor for Global Media Makers, and is one of the founding members of Distribution Advocates, where she hosts the podcast Distribution Advocates Presents.

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Contact

For inquiries, please contact fiscalsponsorship@filmindependent.org.