Mahdi Ahmed

She came to me dejected. She was jilted. A stranger at first. She had nowhere to go. She was crying. I couldn’t deny her. I gave her a place to stay, gave her food. I even gave her new clothes. She was dazed, and she was confused. A useless life she was living, she thought. She also tried suicide. I tried my best to comfort her, yet I had reservations. I was married.

She started coming out of her shell gradually and each day, revealing a new layer of her complex character. I was fascinated. I was hypnotised. She moved me. She made me cry. She made me laugh.

Finally, I managed to make her smile. After that, she started laughing. Then we laughed together. She started talking, at first, a few words, then in full sentences. We became friends. Her metamorphosis was beautiful. As she was about to come out of her cocoon, something happened.

One cold October night, her boyfriend appeared before her. They fought. She cried. I stood motionless. All I could do was watch. He apologized to her. She forgave him. I was happy for her, yet I couldn’t bear the thought she was going to disappear from my life, forever. Never understood why I had a sinking feeling until she was gone.

Something shattered inside me. It was my heart. Only then I realised I was in love with her… still.

It’s been five months since RAANIYAA left. She was the title of the screenplay which I wrote for DASH STUDIO last year. It was a project DASH STUDIO started under the direction of SEMI MUSTAPHA many years ago. With more than 90% of the principal photography completed, it was shelved abruptly.

At the start of the final quarter of last year, DASH STUDIO decided to complete RAANIYAA and appointed director FATTHAAH to helm the project. Since RAANIYAA was written by AISHATH NEENA several years ago, long before cell phones were introduced to the Maldives, completing the production to her screenplay now, FATTHAAH thought it would be unwise both commercially and critically. That’s when I came into the equation.

FATTHAAH commissioned me to reboot the screenplay of AISHATH NEENA as a fast-tracked project of DASH STUDIO. It took me a month to write a complete re-imagining of RAANIYA. I submitted the draft on October last year. Since then, the hype of RAANIYAA slowly subsided. I am yet to receive feedback of RAANIYAA from director FATTHAAH even though I have already rewritten RAANIYAA once.

The main reason for the hold up this time, according to FATTHAAH was the delay in composing the much-needed songs for RAANIYAA. Five months later, he has resumed work on RAANIYAA. He has met with music composer THITTHI on speeding up the song compositions. In the meantime, location scouting for the Male’ part started last week. FATTHAAH has already chosen HA. KELAI for the island part and then there’s a part in a resort too. He hasn’t decided on that yet.

More updates later…

The production team of INGILI has received the long-awaited quotation for building the set in K. GULHI, even though it has been only five days since we requested for one. We are excited and so is the crew at K. GULHI.

We have started budgeting INGILI. Even as we speak, our production manager is going through a thorough read of the screenplay and will note down everything necessary to acquire for the production. He will work closely with director RAVI, DP and I. Our production consultant, TED will be overseeing the whole process.

The production dynamics were worked out during our trip to K. GULHI last Friday. Once the set is built, we have scheduled to visit K. GULHI again to do an inspection of the set, where we will make final adjustments. Once that is done, principal photography begins.

As for the storyboarding, RAVI is nonstop working on it. He has completed 75% of the storyboard. On a daily basis, every evening he reports his status to us over coffee. Most days he presents his visualization of certain key shots. And we all give him feedbacks. This evening, our DP gave the idea of making a soil POV shot where the protagonist puts out his cigarette on top of the camera. Sadly, it was thrown to the cutting floor. So early? It’s not even post-production yet!

It’s always hard to be waiting for something. The hardest is if the waiting goes on for days and days. I am finding myself in such a waiting game.

It’s been three days since I have given SEEZAN the rewritten screenplay of VAFAATHERI KEHIVERIYAA and I am yet to receive his feedback. He did call me last night to inform that the production was back on track after he delayed production indefinitely. That was great news. But when asked about the feedback, he said he was busy last few days and will make an effort to read it with in two days. So, I await for another two days. Make it three, in case he gets busy either today or tomorrow.

I really want to wrap up VAFAATHERI KEHIVERIYAA for good so that I can move on to writing my next screenplay. I have two concepts in mind. First is based on newspaper articles of a slaying of a youth a month ago. And it already has a producer attached. Then there’s this loose adaptation of one of my favorite English movies. The latter has no one attached to produce but my heart is more attached in writing this one since I have loved this movie so much so that I have viewed it close to eight times.

I don’t know when the urge to write this adaptation hit me first, but lately I have been thinking about it constantly. I have even retrieved the movie out of my movie collection to view it again and see if it’s really adaptable to today’s Maldivian society. I have very current and relevant themes to add to it but will know how much these themes would fit once I have a viewing. So I guess, I needn’t to sway my mind on what to write next. It’s been decided…

It’s a rare occurrence for a failed plan to get resurrected and become a successful one. At least for me it was. Moments after the production team of INGILI deemed Plan C a bomb, we somehow felt that we should check out K. GULHI ourselves before deciding that place inappropriate. So we went back to Plan C as scheduled and eventually, trusting our instincts has really paid off.

Yesterday at 1410, we sailed off to K. GULHI despite the shaky start to the proceedings. The sea was a tad rough since the climate looked confused whether to rain or shine. Nevertheless, our production team was having a blast. The team included producer/ director RAVI, his DP, our production manager, one of the actors who actually had the connection with the island, TED who’s helping as our production consultant who keep reminding us that his consultancy meter was running from day one and then there was me, the screenwriter who’s also one of the producers, my very first producing gig.

It took us around 30 minutes to reach K. GULHI where we were welcomed by 4 friends of the actor. One of them, a good carpenter, also happened to be a friend of our production manager. This carpenter friend will be overseeing the building of the set.

We started scouting around the island almost immediately, checking the outskirts first. But we were feeling very discouraged as we declined location after location. None was living up to director RAVI’s visuals. We were almost giving up when they took us to the last spot of the island, which turned out to be THE SPOT we were looking for. This location had thick foliage all around with a space in the middle enough to build our set, as if this spot was waiting to be found.

We immediately started measuring the space to the measurement given in the design. And bingo, it fitted like a glove! We have asked for a quotation to make the set and hopefully either today or tomorrow, we will get it. If their quotation fits our budget, the set will be made. We have also worked on other important dynamics of the production.

After spending 2 hours, we sailed off from GULHI on scheduled time. We couldn’t careless of the rougher sea as we were joyful to have the production of INGILI back on track.

The night ended on a happier note for me. At around 11 something, SEEZAN called to inform that VAFAATHERI KEHIVERIYAA was also back on track.

I have good news and bad news. First, the good news. As mentioned in my last post, I have submitted the rewritten screenplay to SEEZAN this evening. Bad news is, as the title suggests, the production of VAFAATHERI KEHIVERIYAA has been delayed, indefinitely.

It came to me as a big shock since only few days back, SEEZAN was so eager to start production early next month. He even planned to unveil the cast somewhere around end of this month. He also released a teaser trailer which was shown at the screening of his current production, KARUNAVEE BEYVAFAA (TEARS TURNED UNFAITHFUL).

Why the delay, it’s vague. But I think the main reason was not being able to release the film this year since the one and only cinema for Dhivehi movies is fully booked for the remaining months. So he thought would be a waste of good money to have VAFAATHERI KEHIVERIYAA made with a hefty budget and not making instant money out of it until next year. Even I felt commercial disaster written all over it.

Regardless of the delay or what he’s going to produce next, I have asked him to approve the screenplay of VAFAATHERI KEHIVERIYAA as soon as possible since I want to move on to my next project. He’s going to meet me with his feedback after two days.

I just can’t wait to bid farewell to VAFAATHERI KEHIVERIYAA. My next project awaits…

I completed rewriting VAFAATHERI KEHIVERIYAA last night, but did some polishing even today. No, I am not relieved nor my mind at peace. I have a feeling more rewrites to come once I  submit the rewritten screenplay to SEEZAN later this evening.

What did I rewrite? Like I mentioned in my previous post, I rewrote three existing scenes and added three new scenes that made a smooth bridge to the climax not exactly imagined by SEEZAN but the way I imagined the climax would be fitting in general to the storyline. However, during the rewriting, I went through the whole screenplay from the very first scene to the final scene which I had to because this screenplay happened to be intricate and the scenes interwoven to each other than any other screenplay I have written so far. I had to bring major and minor changes to the dialogue and changes dramatically to several key scenes because they were connected to the three scenes I rewrote. Also the three new scenes had to be linked to other major scenes.

This whole rewriting experience was absolute development hell than I first thought. The most difficult task was after completing the draft which was written as a suspense thriller filled with sleazy characters, on SEEZAN’s request I had to add weeping drama in to it hence shaking the very foundation of the narrative arrangement and thus afflicting the character development. That nearly fried my gray matter. I still hear sizzling sound with in.

I don’t intend to write too much about VAFAATHERI KEHIVERIYAA because I think I need to divert my mind off it. How about praying that I don’t need to do another rewrite? Is that a diversion? Think about the character of SEEZAN is cast to play rides off in to a sea of tears towards the sunset. Oh boy, even the sun is howling!

I guess, for the time being, I can relax until SEEZAN reads the rewrite and asks me to rewrite again by adding more weeping drama. But I just hope to god… NOT!

I am finding myself chasing schedules these days. Production of INGILI is behind schedule. So is rewriting VAFAATHERI KEHIVERIYAA. Latter was a deliberate slowing down though. I need to be more careful with it since a change in the dialogue or an expression of the actors could create a ripple effect on the entire screenplay. That’s why I have decided to spend as much time with each scene I am asked to rewrite. However, the new scenes which I am yet to write could be written at one stretch.

Just now, I have rewritten a scene, the second of three scenes I am asked to rewrite. Previously this scene had one camera shot from start to finish where the scene was blocked nicely. In this scene the character of SEEZAN delivered minimal dialogue and had to flex his acting muscles to the limit. He also had to change his moods several times, enough to put a chameleon  to shame. The scene also demanded the skills of the DOP. But most importantly, the scene allowed the director to shine. Sadly, all that is now lost forever. Mahdi whimpers…

I rewrote that scene the way SEEZAN wanted. His major concern was his character to weep while delivering a page of monologue and the character next to his character weeps alongside. I choose not to comment on this.

But only after rewriting, I realized what SEEZAN really wanted out of this scene. He wanted the audience to emote tears with his character as he weeps. It definitely made me cry,  to change one of my favorite scenes in this screenplay. Mahdi whimpers again…

I am sorry, I need to stop typing this post before my tears short circuit my laptop. More news as I rewrite…

Okay, here’s the bitter truth. We have hit a snag. Things are not going too well for INGILI. Pre-production is hundred times slower than a snail, we are lagging miles behind schedule and we still haven’t found the right location. This sounds not only bad but tragic for a movie that boast only one scene, one location and two actors. What did I tell you, it’s the bitter truth?

Panic button’s been hit and the siren has started blaring. Today we, the production team sans the co-producer/ actor in N. VELIDHOO who is expected to return home tomorrow have decided to speed up the pre-production. Our plan A has failed. Plan B was crashed and burnt yesterday. To bounce back, at an urgent meeting this evening, we have worked on a plan C.

The new plan includes visiting K. GULHI next weekend.  No, this island was not in our location scouting list. Yes, GULHI has better and easy connections than HURAA or MAAFUSHI. So a trip is set and we have contacted some friends there.

Since the whole movie is rain drenched from start to finish, previously we were vague on how to make rain. But in plan C, we have worked that out too, thanks to Ted who came up with an easy design for us. He is giving us tremendous support. He has even agreed to help us on cinematography once the location is confirmed.

Director RAVI is halfway through the storyboards. Once he is finished, we will sit down to work on production dynamics based on his storyboards.

Let’s hope plan C works. If not, there’s still 23 letters left in the English alphabet…

After two days of intensive scouting for location in N. VELIDHOO, co-producer/ actor of INGILI has revealed yesterday that his island of birth hasn’t the right location director RAVI wants. What a real bummer! That means, INGILI is going to slip behind schedule and the actual date to start principal photography will  be rescheduled. The production team will reconvene once he returns on Saturday.

Our sight are now set on K. MAAFUSHI and K. HURAA. We are hoping to find what we are looking for from either of these islands.