Four by Three acquires Slamdance, DOC NYC selection Hayat
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA — Four by Three has acquired the distribution rights to the forthcoming documentary short Hayat.
Hayat follows the lives of Rahma, an Eritrean migrant, and her four young children living together in a small unit in Melbourne’s inner suburbs. As Rahma contends with personal difficulties of isolation and disconnect, she encourages her children to maintain a strong sense of their own faith and culture as a means of embracing Western society.
Set during the backdrop of Ramadan, Hayat subtly challenges widely misconceived sentiments towards refugees and migrants by depicting the intricacies of the African migrant experience and intimately exploring life in all its facets.
Hayat was written and produced by Rendah Haj and Maudie Osborne. Haj also directed the film and tapped Gabriel Francis to DP the documentary.
Hayat won Best Documentary at Melbourne Documentary Film Festival, Audience Choice at ReelGood Film Festival, Best Documentary at Nova Frontier Film Festival, Best Victorian Short at Melbourne Women in Film Festival and the Bronze Award at the Spotlight Documentary Film Awards. The film had an impressive festival run, including the following festivals: DOC NYC, Slamdance, RiverRun, St. Kilda Film Festival, Gold Coast Film Festival (Finalist), New York African Film Festival, Docs Without Borders, Moscow Shorts, Stockholm City Film Festival, The Film Collective and the Georgia Documentary Film Festival.
Rendah Haj is an independent documentary filmmaker from Melbourne. Her recent graduate short and film debut Hayat has won several awards and been showcased internationally, including at DOC NYC, the New York African Film Festival and Slamdance. Rendah’s film work is focused on intimately capturing individual experiences and the reality of daily life to highlight social issues, human rights and under-represented stories of the African Diaspora. Through subtle, observational style documentary filmmaking, she strongly emphasises the experiences of muslim women, African migration, familial relationships, social justice and mental health as a means of tackling stigma and mainstream representations.
Four by Three presents Hayat an RRe Film coming Fall 2021
