Karim Ahmad 🇵🇸

“Film festivals are traumatic. How can we make them a place of healing?" And other meditations on curatorial justice from our contributors

After a lil break, the Utopia Studio substack is back w/ another piece in our series on curatorial justice, from the report I published last year, sadly even more relevant today, w/ so many institutions in our industry caving to fascism. Give it a read! 🤎
theutopiastudio.substack.com/p/film-festi...

Now THIS is how you table a con! 🙌🏽 my man! #ICEout

So grateful and honored to support this film and its visionary team of filmmakers. May Hind’s voice be heard around the world, may her story correct the narrative and the course of history.

No words can truly describe last night’s Venice premiere of the Voice of Hind Rajab. To collectively re-live the trauma and horror of Hind’s story with a packed audience followed by chants of Free Palestine and a 24 min standing ovation at one of the most important festival platforms in the world.

‘The Voice of Hind Rajab’ Review: Kaouther Ben Hania’s Gripping Drama Delves Into a Notorious Gaza Event With Heart-Wrenching Urgency The ‘Four Daughters’ director’s dramatization incorporates actual calls between emergency workers and the trapped 6-year-old Palestinian they were trying to save from Israeli tanks and bullets.

www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie...

There's a lot I'd do differently now, just 5 years later, as I reflect on in this post. How about you? What's your aspirational film industry of the future look like? Give it a read and please share in the comments!
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Let's restore the future we deserve. Starting with our film industry.

New post is live on the Substack! This week, I unpacked my first foray into co-creating a radically aspirational media arts system of the future, circa 2020.
theutopiastudio.substack.com/p/lets-resto...

Read to the end and you’ll see I have ideas. What are yours? How can public media bounce back from this attack even stronger than ever? Hit me up and let me know.

#cpb #pbs #itvs #publicmedia #substack #indiefilm

I wrote this in a fit of Monday morning catharsis, partially to contribute to the choir of voices that is thankfully stepping up and saying what public media means to them, but also, more importantly, so we can collectively process where we go from here.

New Substack post is up! Had something else on deck this week, then after almost 60 years of service, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced its closure after Congress laid down & let them get defunded. So this public media OG had to speak up.

theutopiastudio.substack.com/p/reflection...

New post is live at
TheUtopiaStudio [dot] Substack [dot] com

I promised I'd share my origin story early in this journey, so here it is! Naturally, there's heavy reference to X-Men comics. I mean, I did just get back from #SDCC, so it was inevitable.

Enjoy! And share/subscribe, if you dig! ❤️❤️❤️

The Utopia Studio | Karim Ahmad | Substack Click to read The Utopia Studio, by Karim Ahmad, a Substack publication. Launched 4 days ago.

We’re at theutopiastudio.substack.com

We’re building a values driven storytelling ecosystem and sharing comics and case studies on our slate of politic stories in pop culture packages to build narrative power and a better future. Join us!

Once more, with feeling… I launched a Substack! It’s under the banner of my production company The Utopia Studio, the post is live now, check us out and subscribe if you dig it!

DEI is dead at Paramount, David Ellison's Skydance promises FCC Skydance separately promised to appoint a CBS News ombudsman to 'promote transparency and increased accountability' at CBS News. Skydance CEO David Ellison also has met with center-right journalist Ba...

Welp, looks like Paramount’s descent into fascism compliance is complete. At least they’re being more honest about it than every other legacy outlet and just ghosting everyone.

www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

We couldn’t be more honored to announce the film as the first in the Utopia Studio’s co-production slate.

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We’re so grateful to be able to support this necessary film, and the filmmakers behind it. As Kaouther says in her statement, “Cinema can resist amnesia. May Hind’s voice be heard.”

Please read Kaouther’s statement in full on how the film was made and why, below.

My company, the Utopia Studio is extremely proud to be EPing “The Voice of Hind Rajab” directed by the amazing Kaouther Ben Hania, premiering at the Biennale / Venice International Film Fest!

The Utopia Studio | Karim Ahmad | Substack Click to read The Utopia Studio, by Karim Ahmad, a Substack publication. Launched 2 days ago.

Alright, that’s it for now. Please check us out, the first post is live now at theutopiastudio.substack.com and we will be publishing more stories weekly. See you there. Peace.

Most importantly, Substack's a community where we can cross-pollinate the cultural strategies our world needs more than ever. So I’ll be hanging out in the comments often, hoping that you share with us as much as we’re sharing with you…

Because in times of crisis, community is always the answer.

Also, Substack can function as a digital publisher, allowing subscribers to read all our comics right there on Substack!

For one, it gives us the chance to do a deeper dive behind the scenes of some of the projects we’ve been developing across print, WebTOON, & feature film, providing case studies that we hope will be useful to others looking to travel a less traditional path to creating liberatory cultural work.

So alongside the comics & films we’re producing, we’ve also brought together a network of nontraditional funding, production, distribution & impact partners to build alternative ecosystems to the old ones. So naturally we want to share what we’ve learned. Substack is the perfect place to do that.

And it probably won’t surprise any of you out there that telling political stories to audiences at scale is only getting harder, between the illegal oppression of our communities in the streets & the legacy media institutions lining up to comply in advance with all the fascism all around us.

For folks that don’t know, The Utopia Studio is a narrative change studio we launched just last year & we specialize in telling political stories in pop culture packages for massive global audiences to build narrative power for the marginalized to create a better future for everyone.

Super excited to announce that I'm now on Substack, under the banner of my production company, The Utopia Studio at theutopiastudio.substack.com ! 🤎

Turned my kiddo onto Wesley Willis earlier this week and now they’re obsessively playing it nonstop in the car. New level of parenthood unlocked.

I write anywhere and everywhere so I dig the flexibility of google docs, with offline access always enabled so I can shut off wifi/distraction.

@booker.senate.gov, this you?