Maha Jafri is rolling in dough -- well, sort of. The Hopkins senior was awarded $10,000 in funding from the University's Woodrow Wilson Fellowship in order to produce and film her short film, Ellie, due for completion this spring.
Jafri, an English major and French literature minor, is actually new to film.
When Jafri originally won the Woodrow Wilson, she wanted to make a documentary about gun culture in America, but Michael Moore came out with Bowling for Columbine before Jafri had the chance.
Instead, she wrote Ellie, a 10-minute long film based on a short story she wrote freshman year in IFP II.
With the help of her advisor in the Film and Media Studies Department, professor John Mann, and a hand-picked film crew that includes seniors Isaac Irwin, Joe DelSenno, Jason Tyler and junior Anderson Miller, Ellie has developed from a rough short story into a full-fledged screenplay, waiting to be filmed.
Simply put, Jafri says her story is "about a fat girl and a Pakistani store owner."
The plot takes a turn toward the surreal as the shop owner with a "grown-up person crush" romanticizes Ellie in the elaborate song and dance fantasies of his own Pakistani culture.
"It's not a movie about how hard it is to be fat. Nor is it a story about what it is like being Pakistani-American, but at the same time, those issues can't help but come up in the film," says Jafri.
Though Jafri is Pakistani-American herself, for a long time she never really watched the genre of Bollywood movies that ended up inspiring the idea for her film.
"I knew about Pakistan about as much as I knew about hip-hop???and I don't know much about hip-hop so that says a lot," says Jafri.
So she learned. It turns out film-making is actually less glamour, more elbow grease.
"It's a lot of work," says Jafri. "If you're going to invest your time in a long-term project, it has to be something you care about???Sometimes I got to the point where I thought maybe I just shouldn't do it."
According to Jafri, the hardest part of making the film was finding the actors. The four leads were finally filled by three working actors and one JHU grad student.
"In the end, I found them almost entirely on Craig's list???I got an e-mail from one girl that said: I am the best fat actress in the D.C.-Baltimore area," says Jafri.
Needless to say, Jafri cast her.
Ellie is one of the few non-research projects awarded a Woodrow Wilson Grant this year, which Jafri regrets. If any form of media requires money, it is film-making.
"I don't know how well advertised it is to film majors, but it should be," says Jafri.
Though Jafri recognizes the great gift that the grant is providing ("No one ever gets $10,000 to make a student movie"), at the same time, some guidelines have proved a little frustrating.
For one, Jafri's actors can't actually be paid. There's also the fact that she gets her money through reimbursements, not up front. Jafri turns in receipts and budget explanations, and as invaluable as $10,000 may be, the process can be limiting.
Sometimes Jafri can't help thinking: "Isn't it my grant?"
Despite these drawbacks, making Ellie has been an extraordinary experience for her and her crew.
For someone who grew up around art, studied it in high school, and once considered going to an art school before deciding on Hopkins, this film provides Jafri with the creative outlet she missed.
To Jafri, Ellie is a prime example of an artistic undercurrent that remains strong at Hopkins, despite an often lamented lack of art-related courses and readily available resources.
So when the film airs this spring, Jafri hopes to be sharing the limelight with her peers.
With opportunities from student films screenings to undergrad Writing Seminars readings, there is finally a forum for showcasing the truly amazing art being created on campus. This is an exciting opportunity to encourage the flourishing of the arts on the Hopkins campus.
"It's good that they exist," Jafri says. "They always should have existed."
