BMGFlyFest 2020 Panelists
Nijla Mu'min
Nijla Mu'min is a writer and filmmaker from the East Bay Area. Her work is informed by poetry, photography, fiction, and dance. Named one of 25 New Faces of Independent Film by Filmmaker Magazine in 2017, she tells stories about Black girls and women who find themselves between worlds and identities. Her short films have screened at festivals across the country. Her filmmaking and screenwriting have been supported by the Sundance Institute, IFP, Film Independent, and the Princess Grace Foundation.
Her debut feature film, Jinn, premiered at the 2018 South By Southwest Film Festival, where she won the Special Jury Recognition Award for Screenwriting. In 2018, she directed an episode of Ava DuVernay's critically-acclaimed series "Queen Sugar.” Jinn, a New York Times Critic’s pick, was released in November 2018 by Orion Classics, and is currently streaming on Amazon Prime. She recently wrote for the upcoming Apple series, "Swagger." In 2019, she received the Shadow & Act Rising Award and joined the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She also directed an episode of HBO’s “Insecure” in 2019. She is currently a writer on the upcoming Starz show “Blindspotting,” and is developing her second feature film, Mosswood Park. She is a 2013 graduate of CalArts MFA Film Directing and Creative Writing Programs.
Amatus Sami Karim Ali
Amatus Sami Karim Ali is an award winning producer, musician, actress and filmmaker. Her recent projects include We Are the Dream: The Kids of the Oakland MLK Oratorical Fest (2020), The Homecoming Queen (2018), The Last Two Lovers at the End of the World (2017) and documentaries Daisy and Max (2015) and New Muslim Cool (2009). Amatus composed the soundtrack for Sunset Baby (2012) and continues to create collaboratively as a multi-disciplinary artist for stage and screen. She most recently was nominated for a Drama Desk Award in 2018 for her work as a composer of The Homecoming Queen.
Malikah A. Shabazz
Malikah is a Detroit born filmmaker whose interest in media led her to live in New York 9 1/2 years where she studied and created film projects. She has worked as a television producer for a major cable network and served as post production producer for the short film BodyMore. She served as the multimedia producer for Sapelo Square, an award-winning blog on Black Muslims in America and is the curator of #BilalianExperience, a platform dedicated to celebrating and promoting the narrative of Black American Muslims in American Media.
Malikah wrote, directed and produced her first short CONSTERNATION in 2018. Her previous projects also include The Vortex and Transplants. Malikah is currently in pre-production for her next short film, Amethyst.
Qasim Basir
Qasim “Q” Basir is an award-winning filmmaker who often weaves autobiographical elements into his movies. He offers dynamic post-screening discussions of his films as well as engaging keynotes that explore issues of race and Islam, drawing on his experiences growing up Black and Muslim in the United States.
He directed his first feature film in 2010, MOOZ-lum, starring Nia Long, Evan Ross and Danny Glover. The coming-of-age tale about a Muslim boy going to college around the time of the September 11 attacks has received much critical acclaim, with nominations from the NAACP Image Awards and the Black Reel Awards. It won Best Narrative Feature at the 14th Annual Urban World Film Festival in New York. The film also gained international momentum, opening in over 25 countries.
Basir’s film, Destined, has won nine awards, including “Best Director” and “Best Actor” at the American Black Film Festival, as well as “Best Narrative Feature” at Urbanworld.” Destined tells the parallel stories of Sheed and Rasheed - both played by Cory Hardrict. In one world, he is a hardened criminal. In another, he is an ambitious architect. Uniquely illustrated through parallel lives, Destined explores the idea of destiny as well as how the smallest incident can manifest itself into a life-changing event.
Basir’s earlier films include his first short, Glimpse, which won the Drama Category in the One Nation Film contest and The Inspiration of Barack, for which Qasim received the “Inspirational Filmmaker of the Year” award from the Memphis Black Writers Film Festival.
Sultan Sharrief
Sultan Sharrief is a trans-media activist, filmmaker, educator and social entrepreneur. His interest lies at the intersection of art, business, and community impact. His directorial debut, Bilal's Stand, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and he has produced four other feature films. He is also the creator and showrunner for the Black Public Media program Street Cred'. Sharrief is committed to education and community organizing.
In 2018 he founded the Quasar Lab, which focuses on data equity, at MIT and it is now housed at USC in the Media Arts & Practice program. He was a two term board member at the Michigan Theater Foundation and sponsored projects with the Allied Media Projects in Detroit. He was a two-year fellow at the National Center for Institutional Diversity and founded the University of Michigan Ice Carving Team.
All the while, Sultan has been diligently working on “Venissance” a community outreach program that has been renewing community and building accountability throughout Venice by teaching and building sustainable gardens. As well as, working on a soon to be released social movement project aimed to shift the current negative narrative of black cultural awareness to a more positive and inclusive one.