Our reporter Sade Graham was on the red carpet at Urbanworld Film Festival 2016. Check out our interviews below:
Iqbal Mohammed (Director) & Alex Gibbons (Producer)
Tell us about your film Three Minute Warning.
Iqbal: Three minute warning is a humanitarian Palestinian film about roof knocking. Roof knocking occurs in Palestinian area when an empty shell is dropped onto a building and the occupants have three minutes to evacuate the building before an actual missile is dropped onto it. In 2014 during occupation Protective Edg about two and a half thousand people died. Not all of them from this tactic but a lot of them. We just wanted to give an insight as to what it’s like.
Alex: We go into the building—before you might see things on the news where you obviously see the roof knocking occurring and the building blowing up. We actually go inside and see the mother and daughter and their struggle of trying to get out—the mother is also impaired and cannot walk very well and that sort of thing. We wanted to see the inside, the real show.
So tell us about your collaboration as a team.
Alex: So I met this guy at a film festival called No Gloss which is in Leeds. He was screening a film and I produced it.
Iqbal: The thing is, I tried to find a producer for this film and it was so difficult because everybody thought it was a controversial subject and a lot of my producers said it wasn’t for them. So I phoned this guy.
Alex: And I was the only one who was foolish enough to say yeah, I’ll do it. I didn’t even think like “Oh this is risky move.”
Bari Kang discussed Lucky.
Can you tell us about the conception?
This film came about just from my desire to make my first film. I also wanted to tell the story of an underdog, but I didn’t want it to be any underdog—he kind of represents everybody. I don’t give him any specific nationality; all we know is that he’s an immigrant, he’s illegal, and he’s surrounded by all these shady characters. It’s very New York—I grew up in New York and I’ve seen all these people. They’re everywhere, right outside. So it’s about this guy who’s stuck in this crazy world, he’s trying to get ahead, but life just won’t let him. He makes the wrong decision which he thinks is the right decision and it pulls him in a whole different path, which brings out the bad in him.
Were you the only writer/director on the job?
Yes, but I could not have done it without the phenomenal cast, my crew, my wife, my producer.
We also got the chance to chat with the director and star of the new drama Destined, Qasim Basir and Cory Hardrict. They gave us the scoop on their inspiration for the film, Cory’s characters and the message they are trying to send to viewers.
Tell us about the film and its conception.
Qasim Basir: Years and years ago I watched this movie called Sliding Doors it’s with Gwyneth Paltrow. It’s a movie about a girl who misses a train and catches another and her life sort of fractures. I think about that in terms of a black man and I think that sometimes one moment or one mistake has much greater repercussions for us than it does a lot of other people. Our lives can be this or that based on one thing and that’s what this movie represents.
What was it like working with Cory Hardrict?
Qasim Basir: It was terrific man. It was hard cause it was so cold. I don’t know if you heard that song “Its so cold in the D” we shot in Detroit in one of the coldest winters in the last 30 years. I was pretty brutal and long days hard stuff, but we got it done.
Can we talk about your roles? You played both Sheed and Rasheed.
Cory Hardrict: Yes I play Rasheed in one world; he’s an architect and in one world is a drug lord Sheed. It’s to show you the parallel lives of choices and decision making that can determine the fate of the outcome of your life choosing the wrong sides and wrong path, so we tried to lay that out to you.
Can you relate to either of your roles?
Cory Hardrict: Yeah in Sheed’s world I have a son and I have a son in real life you know what I’m saying you’re just trying to not let them go down the wrong path. I lost my mother, but I have a mother in this film who is on drugs and I’m trying to get her off of that and trying to support her through the street life. Some people go on the streets and do that world because that’s their only way to help their family sometimes, and they mean well it’s just a bad thing. Sometimes you’re just caught in that situation, but you want to help that’s the bottom line. In the architect world you want to help save the city and your people with the gentrification that’s a big issue in all the cities as well. We need to show movies like this. Not just movies that are dealing with like the slavery issue cause you can beat that upside the head so much, but right now we want to talk about gentrification and family and that’s real that’s 2016. Lets get those movies out there and hopefully you guys will love it and demand to get it out there in a big way.
When is it going to be out?
Cory Hardrict: February 3, 2017.