Written and directed by Minhal Baig, “Hala” is a coming-of-age story centering around a 17-year-old girl (Geraldine Viswanathan) raised in a conservative Muslim household. The film is set to make its world premiere at Sundance this weekend, but it’s already making headlines for a great reason: Overbrook Entertainment and Endeavor Content adopted the inclusion rider during production of the pic. Deadline broke the news.
Introduced in 2014 by the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative led by Dr. Stacy Smith, the inclusion rider came to prominence following the 2018 Oscars, when Best Actress winner Frances McDormand name-dropped the policy in her acceptance speech.
As the source explains, the inclusion rider strives to make the film and television industry a more accurate reflection of the real-world population both on-screen and behind the scenes, ensuring that sets include women, people of color, people with disabilities, LGBTQ folks, and other underrepresented communities.
“In ‘Hala,’ the inclusion rider policy facilitated the hiring of women into various department head positions and 75% of critical below-the-line roles,” Deadline writes.
“When we set out to make ‘Hala,’ it was very important to me that we have diverse perspectives at the table,” said Baig. “Because the story centered around a young woman’s coming-of-age, I wanted to make sure that the female perspective was represented below-the-line. It was crucial that we hire the best candidate for every single role, but the pool we were hiring and interviewing from had to be a diverse one,” she specified. “I solicited reels, resumes, and recommendations from outside the circle of people I personally knew and searched for the talented crew who had an emotional connection to the story. When we began hiring, I was confident that we would hire women for at least half of the roles on the movie, and we far exceeded that number because we had an abundance of an incredible female crew to choose from. It was unlike any set I’ve ever been on in my life.”
Overbrook principal and executive producer on “Hala” Jada Pinkett Smith famously boycotted the 2016 Oscars due to the lack of diversity among nominees that year. “Endeavor Content has also committed to doing its part not only through the rider policy but has also a pledged 20 percent LGBTQ representation in its projects by 2021,” the source details.
“As these companies continue to make inclusion part of the fabric of what they do, they serve as an example to the wider industry that content and productions can, in fact, match the world in which we live,” said Dr. Smith.
“Hala’s” first screening at Sundance will be tomorrow, January 26. The film marks Baig’s feature directorial debut, and is based on her 2016 short of the same name. Her other shorts include “Pretext” and “After Sophie.”
Brie Larson, Michael B. Jordan, and Paul Feig are among those who have committed to the inclusion policy.
