Roxy Rezvany – Emerging Filmmaker Showcase
Roxy Rezvany, a Brent born and bred filmmaker, joins us to share a collection of her beautiful short films
In the year of Borough of Culture we are delighted to welcome Brent-born filmmaker, Roxy Rezvany, to Other Cinema’s third Emerging Filmmaker showcase of the year. Roxy will be sharing three of her films with us, Wifi Rider, Little Pyongyang and Like A Fish Out Of Water. The discussion with Roxy will be chaired by the producer of Little Pyongyang, Aya Kaido.
The films will play live at 7pm on our YouTube channel and will be followed by a live discussion and Q&A with Roxy and Aya at 7.45pm on our Facebook page. Links will be sent closer to the date.
Films
Wifi Rider (2020), 13mins
Life is lonely for young Palestinian, Shukri. He spends his days on the internet, immersed in a world where Western popstars preach self-love and unity, and where he can forget the lack of acceptance he faces in everyday life. But a life dreaming of paradise abroad does not bode well for a teenager stuck in East Jerusalem. What he desperately wants is to connect with others like him, who feel caught between an occupation, globalisation, and the universal growing pains that come with adulthood. In this 16mm documentary film, we follow Shukri from a childhood in East Jerusalem to moving to the hillside apartments of Amman, Jordan and the sandy shores of the Dead Sea.
Like A Fish Out Of Water (2020), 3 mins
As a woman of interracial immigrant heritage in Britain today, there are many intersecting battlegrounds on which you struggle to establish your identity: you are ‘a woman in a man’s world’, you are a ‘foreigner’ in your own homeland, and you are always ‘half’ of something rather than a ‘whole’. Like A Fish Out Of Water is a film that looks at representation with this in mind. It’s about the struggles of entering new social spaces that people like you haven’t historically occupied, whilst on a personal level you are still struggling to even ‘occupy’ yourself.
Little Pyongyang (2018), 24mins
Joong-wha Choi, a former soldier in North Korea, lives today in a sleepy London suburb, home to Europe’s biggest North Korean population. Despite enjoying the new found comforts of his British life, he has a desire to return to the land that betrayed him, and feels like his true home.
Bios
Roxy is a British filmmaker of Iranian-Malaysian-Chinese descent, born and raised in Brent, London, who has been working in film and video production for seven years. Her work aims to expand people’s perception of British identity, particularly as a someone of mixed immigrant parentage, and to bring marginalised narratives to the mainstream. In 2018 she was recognised by The Dots as a Creative Trailblazer, was director of the year in It’s Nice That’s Creative Review, and was on the cover of Broadcast’ Magazine’s ‘Hot Shots’ issue. She was selected in 2017 by Sheffield International Documentary Festival as one of their ‘Future Producers’ in support of her promise as a feature filmmaker, by the Film London’s ‘London Calling’ development scheme as a director, and the ‘Modern Tales’ talent scheme for long-form scripted development as a writer. She’s made films for the Barbican, Tate and Victoria Miro Galleries, and her work has been broadcast on BBC, Channel 4, VICE.
Her debut short film, Little Pyongyang (2018), won Best Documentary at The Smalls Film Festival, Best Director at UnderWire Festival, Best Cinematography at the Social Impact In Media awards, and premiered in competition at CPH: Dox Festival, and played at Oscar qualifying Sheffield Doc/Fest, Hawaii International Film Festival, Aesthetica and LSFF. It has gone on tour at further festivals and film events at New York’s IFC Center, Los Angeles’ Museum of Tolerance, and San Francisco Film Festival’s Doc Stories. The film was featured on BBC World News, and named by Wired UK as one of the best films streaming online. Roxy has just completed her second documentary film, Wifi Rider, with support from One World Media and the LUSH Film Fund, which will premiere in 2021 as part of Roger Ross Williams’ series One Story Up on Topic. She is currently developing two new scripted films, one with support from the BFI and the other with support from the Brent 2020 Borough of Culture programme.
Aya Kaido is a filmmaker and producer in short films, music promos and branded content for global campaigns. Her focus and interest lies in making films that find their space between documentary and Art. Alongside her producing she works an archive researcher which has lead her to work on documentaries and art films such as BLACK TO TECHNO by Jenn Nkiru. In 2018 she produced Little Pyongyang, a cinematic documentary directed by Roxy Rezvany, which had its World Premiere at CPH:DOX 2018 where it was nominated for the NEXT:WAVE Award and its UK Premiere at Sheffield Doc/Fest in June 2018. It has since gone on to win multiple awards such as Best Director at Underwire Festival, Best Cinematography at SIMA and Best Documentary at The Smalls Festival.
She was also a founding member of Sorta Kinda Maybe Yeah – a film collective for womxn with a DIY, collaborative and inclusive approach to filmmaking, which has been covered by Dazed, i-D, gal-dem, ASOS and worked with MONKI, International Cinema Organisation, BFI, Brainchild Festival and the V&A.
Other Cinemas is a project set up to share the films and stories of black and non-white people in spaces and ways which aren’t alienating to these communities. We focus on films and documentaries by established black and non-white filmmakers and invite them to share their journeys, struggles and successes in the field. Other Cinemas also champions new and emerging filmmakers in the hopes of building spaces and connections which are sustaining to these filmmakers who often struggle in a sector which can be hostile to them. Other Cinemas was established by Turab Shah and Arwa Aburawa, two local filmmakers who wanted to make a different world of film more accessible to Brent’s diverse communities.
Supporters:
This event is supported by Film Hub London
