Nuhash Humayun in Hollywood

Two years ago, Nuhash Humayun’s directorial ‘Moshari’ won an award at the Oscar-qualifying film festival ‘South by Southwest’. The short film also won at several other film festivals afterwards. Since then Nuhash Humayun has been under the radar of production companies and agencies in Hollywood. At that time, Oscar winning director Jordan Peele and actor Riz Ahmed joined the film as executive producers.

Meanwhile, Nuhash signed a contract with ‘Anonymous Content’, one of the top agencies in Hollywood. This young director said, “My contacts in the Hollywood market started growing after this agreement. I started working with Hollywood industry in full swing with mediation of the agency. I have made connections with a lot of people. And this was the beginning.”

Writers Guild of America is the organisation representing writers for film, television, radio and online media in the United States. To become a member of this organisation it requires working on paid projects produced directly for Hollywood studios. Nuhash has already worked on two film writing projects.

More projects are in progress. He has moved forward step by step. In Nuhash’s words, “While working on ‘Moshari’ with the American production house, I signed a writing contract as well. Writers Guild membership requires working on a number of Hollywood projects. If considered eligible, there are a lot of perks including the opportunity to work in Hollywood.”

A24 Films is one of the renowned production houses in Hollywood. The list of films produced and distributed by them include films like ‘Tuesday’, ‘Ladybird’, ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’, ‘Civil War’, ‘Uncut Gems’, ‘Moonlight’, ‘Talk to Me’, ‘Hereditary’, ‘Midsummer’, ‘Ex Machina’, and ‘The Whale’. On Facebook, Nuhash has posted photographs of him touring that house. Does that mean he’s collaborating in a film from that production house?

Nuhash said, “I had gone to the US, receiving the Pillars fellowship this year. They select 10 Muslim filmmakers from around the world every year. They are given training on various subjects while many aspects of the films are discussed. Plus, they provide a funding of USD 25,000, which is sponsored by Netflix, Amazon and A24 Films. That is why we had a meeting with them. I went to the A24 Films as part of the prgramme as they were sponsoring me.”

Alongside working as a screenplay writer, Nuhash also aspires to make films in Hollywood going forward. At the same time, he would certainly work in Bangladesh as well. “It’s not that I’ll be working in projects abroad only. I will also work in my own country, in my own tongue. That too is important for me. I wish to work simultaneously in Bangladesh and in mainstream Hollywood,” said Nuhash Humayun.

Since the beginning of his career, Nuhash preferred working with both young and experienced artistes at the same time. Just as he cast experienced Asaduzzaman Noor in his drama ‘Hotel Albatross’, there were young artistes like Shan Rahman and Allen Shubhro as well. Again, seasoned actors Afzal Hossain and Chanchal Chowdhury were seen along with younger artistes Shohel Mondol, Novera Rahman and Shirin Shila in his project ‘Pett Kata Shaw’.

Speaking on the process of bringing younger and experienced artistes together Nuhash said, “I am very much drawn towards the idea of this collaboration. What happens in this is that the young artistes get the chance to learn from the seniors. On the contrary, even the senior artistes can learn from the newcomers. Soon I will announce the cast of my second movie. You’ll found this collaboration there as well.”

Mosharraf Karim has worked under Nuhash Humayun’s direction for the very first time. Though they were acquainted before, this is the first time they came together for work. However, Nuhash doesn’t want to share any details about this project at this moment. He just said, “Working with Mosharraf Karim has been one of the best experiences of my life. He’s completely different, who cannot be compared to anyone else. The time of the shooting went really well. I was able to learn a lot from him actually. It’s a wonderful experience.”

Starting from ‘Moshari’, ‘Pett Kata Shaw’ and ‘Foreigners Only’- many of Nuhash Humayun’s projects belongs to the horror genre. But in the beginning, he has been noticed working in family drama, romance and comedy genres as well. Did this affection towards horror stories came on him all of a sudden?

Nuhash said, “We grow up listening to the horror stories from our families in childhood. After all whenever we cousins huddled up together under blankets, we either narrated or listened to horror stories. Folklore, folktale or modern horror stories were always there in our culture or literature. But, we couldn’t represent these stories visually. From that point of view, I felt that our local horror stories should be worked on.”  

Plus, the challenge of making horror contents pulls Nuhash Humayun. In the words of this director, “If these stories are not presented properly, they turn into comedy. There’s a risk factor. And I enjoy taking this risk.”

While he was worried about finding a producer once, it has been two years already since that concern has been cleared out. He received funding from several sources around the world for his first film ‘Moving Bangladesh’. While the producers are ready, Nuhash is taking some more time as the script does not seem to be fitting his likings.

At the same time, he’s working on two projects for Hollywood. Meanwhile, he’s wrapping up the second season of the much talked about series ‘Pett Kata Shaw’ for Chorki. The series is in post-production right now.

Speaking on being involved in several local and foreign projects at the same time, Nuhash said, “But, you can shoot only one project at a time. Right now, I’m busy with the editing of ‘Pett Kata Shaw 2’. Meanwhile, I’m working on writing screenplays also.”

“You can be at peace when different projects are on different phases. It takes a huge amount of time to produce a quality project. This way, you can utilise that time properly,” he added.

*This article appeared in the print and online editions of Prothom Alo and has been rewritten for Prothom Alo English by Nourin Ahmed Monisha.