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Videographer and director Ahmed Alawi knows how heavy life can get at times and hopes to help others work through their own burdens by putting his emotions, words and actions in motion for all to see.
The 19-year-old freelance photographer, a Bahrain Polytechnic student pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree in film and animation, is currently working on a three-to-four minute short film called A Heavy Load with the aim of it being released this month.
“It’s a small cinematic piece of me trying to portray how I got over my anxiety,” said Ahmed from Isa Town. “It’s about how I couldn’t really focus on what’s important and what’s not; what’s supposed to be done now and what to do later. I was basically trying to reorganise my life. And in the end, I realised that in order to achieve something, you must sacrifice something.”
A couple of days after contemplating the concept, he came up with the script, the shots and ‘the metaphors’, and decided to shoot the entire film in his room, on his own and using one camera - a Sony A7 III.
“I want to tell the audience that life can be very turbulent and filled with a lot of obstacles and opportunities,” he added. “You just have to keep them in check and don’t worry about anything you can’t control.”
He hopes that after postproduction is complete, A Heavy Load will be available on Vimeo for everybody to stream for free on August 15.
This is not Ahmed’s first directorial debut as in May he directed the 12-minute film Goalden Girls that tells the tale of Bahrain’s passionate national football players, in a bid to inspire people to never give up on their dreams.
The Bahraini documentary has won in two categories in the Cannes World Film Festival — the ‘Best Women Film’ and the ‘Best Arabic Film’— and was nominated for ‘Best Sports Film’ too.
It was produced by Shaikha Dwa bint Khalid Al Khalifa, a former international women’s football player for the Bahrain team, and included Haider Al Nasheet as director of photography, Noor Al Namliti as the writer and art director, Yaseen Al Aradi as an editor and Zeyad Al Adwan as the audio engineer.
The film was part of the second edition of the Project Documentaries programme put together by the US Embassy, Youth Affairs Ministry, Jaan Click Media and American Film Showcase.
Well-known director Mariam Abdulghaffar mentored the creative team.
The film was also featured at the Saudi Film Festival at the King Abdulaziz Centre for World Culture (Ithra) in Dhahran in May.
Ahmed had documented his trip to Saudi for the festival on his Instagram, where he said he never expected their film would reach this far, much less get any awards and how Goalden Girls was accepted in the Saudi Film festival, which is a huge deal for him and his team.
Ahmed was at the festival with Shaikha Dwa, Yaseen, Zeyad and their mentor Maryam.
He also added that he was delighted to be given this opportunity by the Youth Affairs Ministry to prove himself as a filmmaker… something he fell in love with a few years ago.
“I studied electrical maintenance and electronics at Nasser Vocational Training Centre,” he said.
“After I graduated, I went through a rough patch in my life with a lot of family issues, but luckily I had a close friend, Ahmed Rahimi, who encouraged me to keep going and I was inspired by his love for photography.
“I started tagging along with him whenever he had the time and worked together on a couple of projects and we both did internships at different production companies around Bahrain. And now, we both have different paths and actually consider each other rivals until this day.
“We are lifelong friends, the kind that challenge you at your best and are a light for you in your darkest hour.”
“I’ve built myself from the bottom to the top and gained enough experience through freelance. So when it was time for college admissions, I didn’t hesitate to choose film.”
For details on his journey and future works, follow @a.h._alawi on Instagram.
