In Bed-Stuy, Bklyn: Two Griots of Cinema and Film

Two summers ago, Daoud Abeid and Dahkil Hausif answered a favor for a friend and agreed to volunteer at a children's day camp in Jamaica.

They figured, “why not." They were budding filmmakers, having just completed their third film -- a short entitled, “Shades of Brooklyn,” which was picked up by HBO and ran for two years on the cable channel.

They also were well known in their Bed-Stuy neighborhood for building mentoring programs and staging outings for kids, even spawning a successful t-shirt line called Coup D’Etat Brooklyn (CDTBK) that featured three words: “Teach the Babies” on the front.

So, they were down for an adventure: Some time in Jamaica could be inspiration, perhaps, for their next move, and at the very least, another chance to make a positive impact on the lives of children.

Little did they know, not only would the trip end up serving as the backdrop for their next movie, but also it would become a critical turning point in the way they approached moviemaking.

“Traveling to Jamaica changed our perspective on what it really means to let go, start again and re-learn what you thought you already knew,” said Hausif. “By the time we left, we weren’t sure what our story would be. But we knew we had to do a story of self-discovery, and we had to shoot part of it in Jamaica.”

Two years later, what the two came up with was a narrative feature film, 110 minutes, entitled, “The Harder They Fall.”

It’s a classic, coming of age story of a 12-year-old boy who loses his mother as a baby, so he is raised by his father. As he approaches puberty, the boy grows angry, silently blaming his mother for his problems who, he feels, should never have left him.

His father, clueless about what to do with him, sends the boy back to his mother’s family, in the hills of Jamaica. The experience is life-altering for the little boy. His adventures in the mountains, working on his grandfather’s coffee farm, disconnecting from social media and his X-Box, getting into nature... He gets a different view of manhood.

The movie is storyboarded; the script is finished; it is 80 percent casted; they’ve completed all of their reference shooting in Brooklyn and on location in Jamaica. And on November 27, they successfully raised $22,000 through a Kickstarter campaign to pay for a lawyer and tie up some final business ends.

Now, all that is left is raising the $350,000 needed to make the film. Already, two serious investors are interested, but nothing has been inked yet, and they are still looking for more partners.

“This is our shot, and we’re not going to take it like we will get three or four more chances,” said Hausif. “No. We may only get one shot.”

“Ask anyone today to name five black filmmakers, and most people are going to say Spike Lee and Tyler Perry,” said Abeid. “Maybe, if they’re old enough, they’ll mention John Singleton, or if they’re aware enough, Haile Gerima. But really, Spike and Tyler Perry are the only two black filmmakers anybody really thinks of, and there has to be more than that.”

Then, he leans in.

“I don’t want to name names, but a lot of other people have gotten a chance to do good films, and they blew it,” continued Abeid. “They got the big budgets and all of that. And they blew it.

“The problem was, they weren’t humble enough to realize that they didn’t know everything they really needed to know about making a good movie; they didn’t bring on the right team. So, it’s very important that when we do this, we do it right. Everything has to be covered. That’s just what it is."

“We have to push the boundaries, and surround ourselves with talented people,” continued Hausif. “We both went to film school, and up until now, we were just being self-sufficient, doing things the way we’ve always known to do it.

“But in the journey of making this film, our biggest lesson has been to allow ourselves to re-learn everything we thought we knew, beginning with collaborating more, surrounding ourselves with talented people and bringing on other people who are experts at what they do.”

“Also, you have to be careful that you’re telling a universal story -- not meaning 'sell out.' But you have to find the humanity in the story that everyone can connect with, and that’s where a lot of people fall short,” said Abeid.

“Any group of historically oppressed people, naturally, learn to communicate with each other in a way that they can almost speak without speaking, make assumptions. We do that in our art all the time and don’t realize it.

“But you have to remember, we’re not the world market. So if you tell a story that’s only accessible to black people, you will leave a lot of other people out. If that’s what you choose to do is speak to one audience, fine. But we think there’s something in everyone’s story that connects humanity, and that’s what we try to bring out.”

Daoud Abeid and Dahkil Hausif are griots in the African tradition of oral storytelling (but with visuals). No sooner do they learn something, do they move with a sense of urgency, almost, to pass their new lessons along to the many children who now listen to their advice.

“I now tell every kid I know to study,” said Abeid, who teaches a film documentary class at Wingate High School. “I say, 'You guys watch television all the time passively. But if you’re going to spend that much time in front of something, then study it: Think about why you like what you’re watching or why you don’t like it. Think of how it was shot, and why they shot it that way, how did the scene unfold…'

“That’s how you start becoming good at anything. You begin studying it all the time. It’s really that easy, there’s no mystery to it.”

“Now, I’m always talking to young people about fear,” said Hausif. “When I was their age, I pretended like I wasn’t afraid of anything. Until I had a child and was like, ‘Whoa, this is something that is out of my control.’ Understand fear, everybody has it, and it’s okay. Just don’t let it stop you from moving forward, because the fear of the fear itself is usually worse than actually facing the challenge.”

“We don’t want it to be like, ‘Yay, two black men did a film!’ No,” said Hausif.  “We’re shooting for the Oscars.”

“Yeah, the door doesn’t open too often,” said Abeid. “So when one of us gets an opportunity to walk through that door, we have to do 150, no 200 percent!

“It’s really that simple.”