Rumi
2023 · 11m · USA
Directed by Aisha Amin
Tones: contemplative, dark, tense
Rumi, a Muslim-American college student, is street-cast by a talent agent and invited to a fashion industry photoshoot, only to find what began as an exciting opportunity become a humiliating experience as the crew treats her hijab and identity as exotic props.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Hijab as exotic prop at a fashion shoot, sliding from social-realist into psych-horror. The genre-pivot device is the right call — I just hope it earns the horror rather than aestheticizing the humiliation.
Amin's tonal shift from social-realist drama into psychological horror via the non-consensual removal of a hijab is precisely the formal gesture that distinguishes message-cinema from cinema. The interview-with-hijabi-models foundation is consequential.
Tonal-register shift from social realism into psychological horror through cinematography and sound design — that's the most ambitious craft pivot you can attempt in a short, and grounding it in real hijabi model interviews gives the formal escalation its truth. Worth watching for the seam alone.
Reviews
Writer/director Aisha Amin cleverly sheds light on one of the many problematic sides of the fashion industry, with a subtle approach that grasps her titular character's emotional journey through that experience.
From the cinematography to the sound design, once they start touching her and pulling back her hijab, the film almost turns into a psychological horror, initially making the audience uncomfortable, and slowly but effectively transitions into an anger laced with terror.
Festivals
- New Filmmakers Los Angeles 2023