INTRODUCING CIFF LOVE LETTERS: Valentines day has come early! We’ve thought a lot this year about how we can build connections between audience members and filmmakers within a virtual space. One of the hardest things about this year for filmmakers, is that they have not been able to forge spontaneous connections with audiences and hear from them directly. If you’ve seen a film you have loved, click HERE to write a love letter to a filmmaker!
In a residential area of East Orange, NJ, Hanif, a Black, Muslim casket-maker is the protagonist of this unusual film of spiritual rehabilitation. Hanif, haunted by his past, focuses on the present by mentoring two young men in his neighborhood about life while teaching them how to care for the dead. As structural racism and economic fragility throws its punches to the three men, they resort to determination and love. The care in which Hanif tends to the dead is mirrored in the film’s representation of East Orange’s singular ecosystem of faith, strength, and the cycles of violence the characters seek to avoid. TWO GODS is both urgent and everlasting for it opens a time and space to mourn, grow, and learn about one's own mistakes, as well as the possibilities of overcoming hardship and pain. (MG)
- Year2020
- Runtime82 minutes
- LanguageEnglish
- CountryUnited States
- PremiereNew England Premiere
- DirectorZeshawn Ali
- ProducerAman Ali
- CinematographerZeshawn Ali, Emir Fils- Aime
- EditorColin Nusbaum
- MusicMichael Beharie
INTRODUCING CIFF LOVE LETTERS: Valentines day has come early! We’ve thought a lot this year about how we can build connections between audience members and filmmakers within a virtual space. One of the hardest things about this year for filmmakers, is that they have not been able to forge spontaneous connections with audiences and hear from them directly. If you’ve seen a film you have loved, click HERE to write a love letter to a filmmaker!
In a residential area of East Orange, NJ, Hanif, a Black, Muslim casket-maker is the protagonist of this unusual film of spiritual rehabilitation. Hanif, haunted by his past, focuses on the present by mentoring two young men in his neighborhood about life while teaching them how to care for the dead. As structural racism and economic fragility throws its punches to the three men, they resort to determination and love. The care in which Hanif tends to the dead is mirrored in the film’s representation of East Orange’s singular ecosystem of faith, strength, and the cycles of violence the characters seek to avoid. TWO GODS is both urgent and everlasting for it opens a time and space to mourn, grow, and learn about one's own mistakes, as well as the possibilities of overcoming hardship and pain. (MG)
- Year2020
- Runtime82 minutes
- LanguageEnglish
- CountryUnited States
- PremiereNew England Premiere
- DirectorZeshawn Ali
- ProducerAman Ali
- CinematographerZeshawn Ali, Emir Fils- Aime
- EditorColin Nusbaum
- MusicMichael Beharie