“Nijla Mu’min’s “Deluge” / Magical Realism, post-BP oil spill New Orleans, and Black Mermaids”
Nijla Baseema Mu’min is a writer and filmmaker from the San Francisco Bay Area. A 2007 graduate of UC Berkeley, she is now pursuing a dual MFA degree in Film Directing and Writing at Calarts. I’ve been following Nijla’s work from quite some time, more specifically her recent work — from her short film Two Bodies, which has screened at festivals across the country, including the 20th Annual Pan African Film Festival, the Fusion: LA LGBT People of Color Film Festival to her essay which is included in the The New York Times-featured book, Love InshAllah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women. Her newest film Deluge involves Drexciyan-like underwater worlds and archetypes. As Nijla describes:
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Deluge is a short film that explores African American’s relationships to water, informed by such traumas as The Middle Passage, the BP Oil spill, and Hurricane Katrina, through the lens of main character Tiana, and her introduction to an aquatic underworld. After witnessing the mass drowning of her friends and struggling with the decision not to jump in, 14-year old Tiana must decide if she will join the order of black mermaids that protect the oil-drenched waters of Lake Pontchartrain where her friends rest. This film is inspired by the 2010 mass drowning of six black teens in a Shreveport, Louisiana sinkhole. None of them could swim. The film blends coming of age drama, magical realism, and psychological suspense to explore traumatic memory in a post- BP oil spill New Orleans…
Sherese Francis: Futuristically Ancient 