Minhal Baig is a writer and director. In 2017, she was chosen as a directing mentee for Ryan Murphy’s Half Foundation Directing Mentorship. Currently, she is a story editor on Netflix’s “Bojack Horseman.” Baig has written and directed several shorts including “Pretext” and “After Sophie.” “Hala” is her feature directorial debut.
“Hala” will premiere at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival on September 26.
W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.
MB: “Hala” is a film about a Muslim teenager who is coming into her own and dealing with the knowledge of a secret that threatens to unravel her family. She is wrestling with her identity as a Pakistani-American and a Muslim, the cultural and generational gap between herself and her mother, and recognizing that her father may not be the person she thought.
W&H: What drew you to this story?
MB: After my father passed away, I moved back home to live with my family in Chicago. It was in that period of two years that I started to reflect on my childhood. A difficult transition took place at the end of my senior year in high school. My relationship with my mother was very contentious at the time. I felt like I was straddling the line between cultures and never really succeeding at either.
That experience served as the foundation for the script that I began writing that ultimately became the film “Hala.”
W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?
MB: My hope is that people leave the theater feeling that they can either recognize themselves or people they know personally in “Hala.” My aim has been to make a very culturally specific story with universal themes.
W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?
MB: The writing process took a very long time. I had a very fast, loose version of the script about a Muslim teenager growing up in France in early 2015. That script was completely rewritten over the course of a year. The story was moved to America and the family became Pakistani-American. I drew more and more from my personal life for the final version of the screenplay.
Although production was a very challenging process because of the limitations that are commonplace in making any independent film, it was definitely
the writing process that proved most challenging. I needed to become more vulnerable on the page to make the best version of the story.
W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.
MB: In 2015, I made a short film of the same name using money crowdfunded via Kickstarter. We raised about $35,000. It was a 14-minute film that explored just the shorter story between Hala and her classmate Jesse.
I rewrote the script so that I could package the short film and the screenplay together to find financing. We received a lot of noes. It’s hard to remember the number of rejections, because there were so many. The script landed on the Black List in 2016, which definitely helped raise awareness about the project. Endeavor Content and Overbrook Entertainment came on board in 2017.
W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
MB: I studied painting and playwriting in college. I loved painting but I never considered it professionally. My playwriting professor, Donald Margulies, suggested that we start writing screenplays if we wanted to make a living. That’s not exactly how he said it, but there was the implication that it would be very difficult to become a professional playwright. He was correct.
I moved to Los Angeles with the intention of pursuing a career as a development executive. I had interned for Scott Rudin and ICM and worked in the mailroom at UTA. I quit that job after four months. I knew that I had to take a bet on myself and focus on my own writing.
I had grown up watching movies from the ’50s and ’60s with my dad. We would always talk about how we would have changed the movies after watching them. He and I sometimes dreamed of the idea of writing a movie together. When he passed away in 2013, I felt motivated to pursue the filmmaking dream in earnest.
W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?
MB: The worst advice I received was to try and manufacture story ideas that were high concept in an effort to get people to read my scripts. I never really did that. It wasn’t for me.
The best advice I received was from an incredible director and mentor of mine. I called her one night with a question about how to deal with others’ egos. She said, “Kill them with kindness.” She was right.
W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?
MB: The advice is the same for all directors. Write your own scripts. Direct short films. Get a day job that gives you some mental space for your creative pursuits. Be selfish with your writing time. Mark Duplass said it perfectly, “The cavalry isn’t coming.” Be your own cavalry.
W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.
MB: Andrea Arnold’s “Fish Tank” is one of my favorite films. Every once in a while, I revisit the movie and it comes alive for me in a new way. Katie Jarvis’ performance is so brilliantly realized. Everything about that movie — from Robbie Ryan’s handheld cinematography, to the editing, to the sounds — comes together to make a film that is so much more than the sum of its parts. It wrecked me and continues to wreck me each time I watch it.
W&H: It’s been a little over a year since the reckoning in Hollywood and the global film industry began. What differences have you noticed since the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements launched?
MB: A lot more men have been held accountable for their bad behavior in the last year since the #MeToo movement. At the same time, the industry and its players also need to understand that if there is such consistent flagrant abuse of power, perhaps the industry itself needs to be reimagined.
There need to be more women executives, agents, filmmakers, critics and below-the-line. We need to recognize the achievements of women and empower them to take on leadership roles. We need to take up more space. I’ve also written extensively on this for the New York Times in an op-ed, “Making Movies After #MeToo.”
