Media Maker

When the Taliban puts a bounty on Afghan director Hassan Fazili’s head, he is forced to flee with his wife and two young daughters. Capturing their uncertain journey, Fazili shows firsthand the dangers facing refugees seeking asylum and the love shared between a family on the run.       Emelie Mahdavian was a 2017 BAVC Mediamaker Fellow when “Midnight Traveler” was in production. The film won a Special Jury Prize at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. Emilie, what is your our role/credit on the film? Producer/Writer/Editor   How did you come to tell this story? Hassan Fazili and I met through [...]

In the small town of Bladenboro, NC, seventeen-year-old Lennon Lacy, was found hanging from a swing set on August 29, 2014. Despite inconsistencies in the evidence, local officials quickly ruled Lennon’s death a suicide, but his mother, Claudia, believes Lennon was lynched. ALWAYS IN SEASON explores the lingering impact of more than a century of lynching African Americans and connects this form of racial terrorism with racial violence today. At the height of their popularity, lynchings attracted thousands of white men, women, and children spectators. They were public events, complete with souvenirs and photographs. Train seats were even specially reserved [...]

Around 4am on the morning of December 12, 2016, nearly 30 men, women and children were swaddling themselves in their warmest winter shawls, preparing hot beans and hot cocoa, and scooping up candles, toddlers, and guitars to step out into the Central Valley pre-dawn frost to honor Our Lady of Guadalupe. A few miles north, at a hotel in the center of Stockton, two filmmakers had traveled a distance to line up their batteries and SD cards, slip on their coats, and map their way in the dark to the Artesi II Migrant Family Housing Center to record this ritual. For me. And I, 3,000 miles away, was [...]

The truth is, I was about ready to give up on the project when I was accepted to the BAVC Mediamaker Fellowship program. I had spent the previous year and a half submitting to funder after funder and the seemingly endless stream of "No's" was taking it's toll on me.  Three days before the applications were due I got home from a job that had run into overtime, opened my computer to the half completed application and thought to myself “why bother?  It’s just going to be another no.” I knew that I was going to be on a shoot [...]

I applied for BAVC Media’s MediaMaker Fellowship full of doubts that I would ever be picked. I had previously applied for grants and fellowships and had been rejected by all of them. I thought it might have something to do with my ethnicity: I’m Filipino. But I continued to apply. Navigating the filmmaking process is a very daunting and isolating experience. I really needed support, whether it was through funding or mentorship. I didn't have anyone to talk to about my film. I didn't have the necessary critical feedback that could bring my skills to the next level. I found [...]

Almost by definition, we documentary filmmakers work in siloes of our own making. In making a film, we may only be meaningfully involved with a handful of other people – subject/s, a few crew members perhaps and maybe an editor. But to stay within the silo is the kiss of death; total immersion can be wildly distorting. There’s a numbness that can set in as you wrestle with moments on film again and again and again. As artists and storytellers, we must reach outside our siloes if we are to maintain a healthy, creative perspective on our work. This need [...]