Crowd funding for Mai Elgizouli's thesis Short film project – The Pigeons .
My graduation project is a collection of three short film vignettes inspired by moments, memories, and feelings I have experienced since moving to New York as a Sudanese student.
I am an award-winning director, artist, and musician currently completing my MFA thesis project at the School of Visual Arts in New York. I am Sudanese, and I came to the United States from Egypt a little over a year ago. My graduation project is a collection of works inspired by my personal experiences of migration, displacement, memory, and belonging.
Since arriving in New York, I have experienced many emotions: connection and disconnection, belonging and displacement, and missing people, places, and parts of myself. While I was grateful to receive a scholarship and the opportunity to study in New York, I was also dealing with stress, uncertainty, and emotional overwhelm. During the development of my thesis, I often found myself overthinking and questioning what my graduation project should be about.
Eventually, I realized that the project itself needed to come from those feelings. Rather than searching for an external story, I decided to transform my own emotional experiences into visual narratives and share them with an audience.
The film consists of three vignette-style works, each exploring a different emotional state. Sharing Overload has been completed, while the final two vignettes, The Pigeons and The Child Vendor , are currently in development. I am aiming to secure funding for both projects by July 15. My goal is to complete principal photography before the start of the fall semester, which will be my final semester in the MFA program. During that semester, I will focus on completing the projects through editing, post-production, and final thesis preparation.
The Pigeons is the most ambitious and collaborative part of the project. It is inspired by a moment when I found myself in Central Park, surrounded by beautiful trees, grass, and open space, yet feeling completely disconnected from the environment. I kept asking myself why such a beautiful place did not feel beautiful to me. I realized that part of that feeling came from being far away from home and from landscapes that felt familiar to me.
Music became an important source of comfort during this period. Since moving to New York, headphones have become an essential part of my daily life. Music often helped me reconnect with myself when I felt isolated or overwhelmed. This idea became the emotional core of the film: how music can create connection when we feel disconnected from the world around us.and i consider music is my main insptartion and motivation for visuals in a time you become speacheless and sppration dessapear for a reason.
In the film, I perform as the main protagonist, using my own experience as the foundation of the story. The project combines performance, dance, music, masks, and natural materials. I am also organizing workshops for mask-making and movement because I believe that the creative process itself is an important part of the work. Building community, creating together, and sharing experiences are central to my artistic practice.
I am seeking to raise $3,500 to support my thesis film project. The funds will directly support the production process and will be used for the following:
- Rehearsal space
- A 3-day dance rehersal space
- Costume materials
- Extra equipment
- Art direction
- Props and art supplies
- Transportation
- Rehearsal and production catering
- Festival submission fees
Previous Works
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaN9ELG4p4g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrICWmemQH0&lis
