Rob Munday
In the summer of 2020, with coronavirus spreading throughout the world, communities around the globe roiled with outrage following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Despite many months spent in isolation to combat the disease, a communal surge of feeling ignited and people took to the streets in response to the stark reminder that COVID-19 wasn’t the only threat to society.
Of the many demands that emerged from the movement, “Defund the Police” was one of the most impactful—finding widespread purchase in mainstream media due to its provocative premise, it was a rallying cry for activists in reaction to ongoing systematic racial discrimination and police brutality, as well as a favored punching bag for critics. For actors and roommates, Khadijah Roberts-Abdullah and Araya Mengesha, the summer’s protests had a profound impact and they took the popular slogan as a jumping-off point for an examination of their complex feelings. Channeling their frustrations, fears, and outrage into creativity, the duo created this short film, DEFUND. The story of a set of twins, looking to take action following the injustices of 2020, the writer/director duo made their short with the hope of telling a story that would “add to the collective conversation”.
Khadijah Roberts-Abdullah (L) & Araya Mengesha not only star in DEFUND but also wrote/directed the film.
Explaining that their film was a “direct result of the events that we were witnessing during the summer of 2020”, the pair quickly assembled a small four-person team: previous collaborator, J Stevens, offered their skillset as a DoP/Editor, alongside with providing access to the necessary equipment to shoot the short, and Perrie Voss chipped in as “AC/Grip/All around champion”, as the tiny team shot their film “under extreme covid conditions”.
With the filming of DEFUND largely accomplished within the apartment Khadijah and Araya have lived in for the last few years and mainly utilizing natural light, visually, the film has a somewhat rough-and-ready aesthetic. That certainly isn’t meant as a derogatory comment though, if anything this lo-fi approach only adds to the immediacy of the piece, amplifying the energy of the performances and the importance of the message. And ultimately, it’s this message that shines through and makes its impact.
The apartment where the short was shot also doubled as as a “black box studio”, where the film’s climatic ‘List of Demands’ sequence was filmed
I’m never really a big fan of films that use on-screen text to deliver information, but the simplicity with which DEFUND does this throughout its 14-minute duration is really effective. From the brainstorming of poster ideas to the key takeaway at the end – “no matter what the next step is let it be forward, let it be action” – seeing these words big and bold on the screen really lands an impact. As the film concludes, with a tribute to those who have lost their lives to acts of police violence, it’s hard not to be rocked by what we’ve just seen and this simple list of names provides the perfect reminder of the shocking real-world events that inspired DEFUND into existence.
Cinema continues to play an important role in capturing historic events and political movements and DEFUND, with its humorous approach, tackles important issues with an accessible, thought-provoking approach. The significance of its topics will be at the forefront of conversations until action is taken and with that in mind, I’ll leave the final words here to Khadijah and Araya: “As we move towards reaching some sense of ‘normal’ again, what vestiges of the ‘past’ are we prepared to face and reimagine? These are important conversations to have as we decide where we’re headed next”.