BIPOC-owned creative studio, production and postproduction company Scheme Engine has added Kenyan director and artist Amirah Tajdin to its roster for U.S. representation in commercials while handling her globally for music videos.
Born and raised in Nairobi, Tajdin takes pride in being Black, Arab, Kenyan, Muslim, an aesthete, and a woman most of all. Tajdin spent her teen years in Dubai and received a BFA in South Africa and Baltimore. Her work is informed by a unique global perspective, her mixed lineage, the feminism of her rebel grandmothers, and the lived experiences of her characters. Tajdin’s stories are captured with a remarkable eye for style and show an infinite variety of women.
Tajdin’s prolific career in commercials, fashion films, documentary and narrative projects includes work for brands such as Cadillac, Bloomingdale’s, M.A.C, Virgin Mobile, Pepsi, Maybelline and The Louvre Abu Dhabi. Her brand film Sisterhood: Action for Girls Who Code was a Tribeca X Award finalist in 2019 and garnered a Best Director nomination; her short film Marea di Tierra competed at festivals globally, including at Sundance and Cannes Directors’ Fortnight. Tajdin is a Sundance Institute Fellow, selected for both the Screenwriters Lab and Directors Lab for her feature film currently in development.
Tajdin said, “It’s rare that a director like myself who isn’t the expected norm gets to be part of a tribe like Scheme Engine. It’s even rarer when the tribe in question is a BIPOC-owned production house with an inspiring track record despite being one of the newer kids on the block. I’m excited for this new chapter, not just in my career in the U.S., but for the new world of storytelling I get the privilege to delve into with an incredible team behind me.”
Scheme Engine CCO Devin Amar said, “Amirah is a force and a risk taker. She’s broken a lot of boundaries as a filmmaker, as a woman of color and a director growing a career in the UAE. Her creative approach to navigating identity in storytelling makes her a perfect addition to our roster.”
Scheme Engine EP Jannie McInnes added, “We were captivated by the rich array of Amirah’s subjects across multiple genres. They are largely women – all ages, diverse cultures, beautiful, tragic, funny, badass, from teen coders, to Bedouin craftswomen, C-suiters, and migrants. Each is given deep respect, in amazing visual environments that give these stories a casual royalty.”
Scheme Engine becomes Tajdin’s first career roost for U.S. representation. She serves as the creative half of SEVEN THIRTY Films, an indie production company which she founded in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2011 alongside her sister, producer Wafa Tajdin. Amirah Tajdin is repped for commercials internationally by RadicalMedia (London and Berlin), and Loveboat (Paris).
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More