1) Can you talk briefly about your background, and how you first got interested in filmmaking?

I had many professions throughout the years. From programmer, digital strategist, art director to building up a start-up. I tried on a lot of skins but repetitively ended up feeling limited. I sought a profession that empowered me to utilize a bandwidth of contrasting abilities that I am passionate about. About two years ago, I went through the process of what I would most likely label as quarter-life crisis. And navigating those challenging times I did what you do during a quarter-life crisis - Yoga teacher training.

Somewhere in the process of that, I eventually woke up one day and just knew which direction to navigate. To this day, I prepared myself for the world of film. I started gathering experience on sets and googled my way through multiple obstacles of shooting my first projects (because of my immediate over-excitement unfortunately in the opposite order). And well, here’s one result.

2) What was the initial idea for this project and how did it evolve from there?

I used to get upset at how gender stereotypically female characters are often being portrayed in contemporary cinema and TV. This piece was never supposed to be a typical narrative short. I was aiming for something more like an audio-visual poem. An ode to all the authentic and non-linear women out there. I wrote the voice-over first and then everything came together pretty fast. Queens was my first short so I had to win the creative hearts of a lot of strangers I met on the internet but thanks to all my amazing crew members everything ran incredibly smoothly.

3) What was the biggest challenge in making this film? And the easiest part?

The easiest was the creative part and surprisingly the shooting. Everyone was getting along intuitively. I had no idea what I was doing but pretending worked perfectly fine. The biggest challenge was the audio which was non-existent. We didn’t get the rights to the original soundtrack so we had to compose our own and my sound designer made me suffer badly for not recording anything on set. I had to chew what I still believe to be Cinderella’s centuries-old breadcrumbs for multiple hours. I hope your ears have been satisfied.

4) What’s a film you’ve seen recently, new or old, that you really loved and why?

Last Black Man in San Francisco, dir. by Joe Talbot. Why? Because everything and extraordinarily beautiful cinematography.

5) What’s next for you?

Film it is. I'm currently learning to operate the camera myself and I’m navigating more into the audio-visual direction. Music videos are where my heart flutters. You have so much creative and conceptual freedom. And because you don’t have to communicate with words, no one is excluded. It’s a very universal and sensual experience. A few projects that I directed will be premiered very soon.

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IG: @asen.ali