On Set with ‘Oblivion’ director Fatemeh Mohamadi's Pop Culture Loving Crew #NaBloPoMo

While Fatemeh Mohamadi entertained audiences as a stage actress and teacher long before filming her directorial debut Oblivion, she always knew she wanted to be in the driver’s seat. 

'Oblivion' director Fatemeh Mohamadi During Round III of the 2019 Short Film Slam, she and I spoke briefly about her motivations for making this live action drama about an elderly couple dealing with Alzheimer's disease, her goals with filmmaking and experience in theater. 

As we take a closer look at how this film came together, hear from the director on her need to be seen, ability to improvise and challenge the hearts and minds of the world....

Fatemeh Mohamadi: I was fond of team work from childhood and always liked to play shows for the elders in my father’s family. I gave my family’s children roles and directed them in their roles. It was the best entertainment for me. We also sold symbolic tickets. 

Since I was the only daughter of my father’s family, I had some of the boys wear a woman’s dress. My brother and cousin cried and did not want this role but they had to accept it. 

Once they beat each other hard on the show and the show broke off but I tried to tell the grown-ups that this was part of the show. I later found out this was a technique that I knew instinctively.  

All this made me realize I’m interested in directing and directing the group. I first started with the theater. After a while, I taught in secondary school and middle school. My students won tournaments and I received prizes but after a while I felt that the only thing that satisfies me is the cinema. I just tried to use the good experience that I had in the theater and then I forgot acting and directing in the theater because I lived directing the cinema. 

The first thing any creator needs is for more people to see his creation, as God wants his servants to see his creatures more closely. So festivals are the best opportunity for filmmakers to overcome this need. 

I just want more audiences for my movie around the world. It’s even better for me than the prizes. I love the audience encouragement and this is the best sound that a filmmaker wants to hear because he wants to be sure of his own actions. 

I like to improve the culture of humanity, for humans to be kinder together and to other creatures, and the world to be a better place to live. - Fatemeh Mohamadi

First-Time director Fatemeh Mohammadi on Love, Old Age and Being Kinder Together #NaBloPoMo

A woman named Mehrbanoo tries everything to make her husband’s life, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s, worth living in Oblivion, a live action drama written by Hossein Amiri, Pedram Pour Amiri and Mohammad Davoodi.

Rental issues and the absence of the elderly couple's children and grandchildren take their toll in this sensitive portrayal and directorial debut of Fatemeh Mohammadi, an actress and theatrical arts teacher who crewed several short films before making her first film.

"This film pops questions in the mind. Do we leave our parent in their old age alone? To suffer in pain?" asks Fatemeh who says Oblivion shows viewers what aging without the support of one's children is like.

"In the end, this film is simply the portrayal of love for one another."

Audiences had an opportunity to see Oblivion when Round III of the 2019 Short Film Slam, presented by The Madlab Post screened in Baltimore and Philadelphia.

Do YOU know anyone who is affected by Alzheimer’s?

What are the best ways YOU'VE seen for someone to have support when aging without children or loved ones?

Stay tuned for more from director Fatemeh Mohammadi in honor of The Madlab Post studio's 4-Year Anniversary in 40 Days and 40 Moments!

'Little Woods' Outlaw Heroine Tessa Thompson puts Spotlight on Sisterhood at Urbanworld Film Festival

During a recent girl's night I attended, someone sparked a discussion about actors who are so compelling that they are the main reason you will go see a movie in theaters. Tessa Thompson (Sorry to Bother You,Thor: Ragnarok, Westworld, Creed) is among those actresses for me.

Sitting in the film still for Little Woods, her image stopped me dead in my tracks as I scrolled through the 22nd Annual Urbanworld Film Festival schedule this week. I'm glad it did because I would have surely overlooked this western movie about a woman on parole for smuggling medicine to residents in a rural North Dakota town.

When I think of westerns, I picture an old movie from the 70s with cowboys, barndoors and pistols. That is where my mind goes despite knowing good and well there's more to the genre. Adding a modern take on the typical western movie, Little Woods is the directorial debut of Nia DaCosta, a New York native who developed the film for 2 years; starting at the Sundance Screenwriter's Lab.

DaCosta set out to humanize the conversations surrounding healthcare and women's reproductive rights -- topics she says have been overly politicized -- in hopes that her film will serve as a vehicle for understanding among audiences. In Little Woods, two estranged sisters living in poverty work outside of the law to improve their circumstances. Tessa Thompson plays Ollie, a woman who has abandoned her former ways of drug trafficking and helping struggling residents of the oil fracking boomtown in North Dakota sneak across the Canadian border for life or death medical procedures.

English actress Lily James (Baby Driver, Cinderella, Downtown Abbey) plays Deb, Ollie's sister who shows up in crises with a young child and an unexpected pregnancy. Facing foreclosure on the home inheritied from her adopted mother, Ollie must make extreme decisions about whether she will return to her old way of life, risking prison to help keep a roof over her family's head.  

One of the most fascinating things about making movies is how much you learn about the world, or some aspect thereof, as a byproduct of the film. DaCosta deliberately set her film in a fictional town based on Willinston, North Dakota -- where men out number women 2 to 1. Through research, interviews and visits to Willinston, she found out that the town is one of the hardest places to get an abortion, among other needs. The Little Woods director became inspired to tell a story about women in rural America and the hardships they experience regarding access to healthcare.

Upon further reading about this movie, I am reminded about DaCosta's point of there being differences between women's experiences right here in the U.S. and these hardships are rarely part of the public discourse. I would add that its partly because few people outside of rural areas know about the difficulties women endure in rural America, or that the towns even exist.

Before clicking on Tessa Thompson's Little Woods photo, I don't think I've ever heard of Willinston, North Dakota. Reading about Thompson's visit to the town -- where locals told her about the violence, women carrying guns just to be able to shop at Walmart safely, and the bleak state of affairs because the jobs are just not there anymore -- gave me a better appreciation for films like Little Woods; and the bonds created between women on and off-camera to shed light on an aspect of the human experience that audiences typically don't see on the big screen.