Horror filmmaker Jordan Peele is teaming up with Riz Ahmed to executive produce a live-action short film from Nuhash Humayun about climate change.
Peele, the Oscar-winning director behind Nope and Get Out and Ahmed, who won an Oscar for best live-action short film The Long Goodbye (and an Oscar nod for Sound of Metal) are backing Humayun’s dive into climate change in a project dubbed Moshari. Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions and Ahmed’s Left Handed Films will assist.
Moshari
“The film follows two sisters forced together to survive in a strange new world while battling their own inner demons,” reads the film’s logline. ‘Moshari’ translates to ‘mosquito net.’
Humayun is a self-taught filmmaker who wrote, directed, produced, and edited the film.
Peele and Ahmed join Monkeypaw president Win Rosenfeld and SVP of development and production, Dana Gills, as well as Left Handed Films SVP and head of television Allie Moore, on the film.
“Moshari is a unique horror short in that it’s profoundly visual and emotionally striking from the first frame,” Rosenfeld and Gills said in a statement. “[Humayun] drew us into his dynamic post-apocalyptic world and never let go. It’s a film about survival, love, and family, but it’s also a terrifying and novel take on what a monster movie can be.”
“We were floored by [Humayun’s] riveting film that evokes our subconscious fears, from the childhood monster under the bed to an apocalyptic future,” Ahmed and Moore said. “He weaves together jump scares and an emotional survival story of two young sisters, confronting colonialism and climate change in the process. We’re thrilled to join Nuhash’s team and help share this story.”
Moshari has already won several awards, including SXSW’s Jury Award and prizes from Fantasia, HollyShorts, and Melbourne festivals. It is also the first Bangladeshi film to qualify for an Oscar.
Nope’s climate commitments
Peele’s Nope drew parallels to last year’s Don’t Look Up, the climate satire Adam McKay film with an all-star cast led by Leonardo DiCaprio and Meryl Streep. Nope emphasizes the important role of Black-led climate movements; communities of color are among the most threatened by climate change.
Nope was also a sustainable production. “We are hyper-aware of the influence our industry has, and our production team is committed to setting a new bar and crafting better precedents with the hope that it will encourage all our filmmaking peers to do the same,” Nope producer Ian Cooper said in a statement earlier this year.
“Reducing our environmental impact throughout production was extremely important to us, and while we are proud of what we were able to accomplish on Nope, I am confident that we can do even better,” Cooper said.
The film worked with fuel vendors to source renewable diesel fuel, which produces 80 percent fewer emissions than standard diesel. Other measures included LED lighting, waste diversion, and avoiding more than 170,000 plastic water bottles. Nope also brought sustainability into the film with an electric motorcycle and charging stations, recycling bins, and green signage. The efforts earned the film a Gold Seal from the Environmental Media Association, which recognizes behind-the-scenes sustainability initiatives.
Moshari comes as the industry has been urged to take a stronger position in promoting climate action. The Environmental Media Association recently launched an activist board led by Gen Z changemakers. They’re working to encourage the industry to take meaningful action in front of and behind the cameras.
The Begley-Cohen test, which also launched this year, is modeled after the Bechdel-Wallace Test used to measure female representation in media. Its goal is to help the industry curb its plastic use.
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