Today we’re speaking with the filmmaker behind the short film, Why Me?, Shaha Mag. This is a wonderfully fun, sombre, scary and thought-provoking film. It revolves (no pun intended) around a game of Russian Roulette. A number of strangers find themselves in a room being forced to play the game with a revolver. Thanks for speaking with us.
UniversalCinema Magazine (UM): Everyone has to (or at least does) leave something behind if they don’t shoot themselves. These seem to be very significant items: spit, crucifix, money. Do these things represent what’s most important to these individuals? (with spit perhaps representing courage?)
(SM): Yes. In a way. Every single person was leaving something crucial to their “archetype”. Two of them left physical tokens that are pretty self-explanatory(Cash, Rosary), but the other two left something a little more abstract with the “spit” representing disrespect towards justice and Lady not leaving anything representing fear of facing justice.
(UM): This may be an abstract questions, but this is a bit of an abstract film, so do the individuals who leave something behind in the tray gain something, lose something, or both?
(SM): They certainly lose fear of death. Therefore, the ideas that helped them throughout life and were crucial in the way they acted right before pointing a gun at themselves were useless now that they they no longer fear dying, because they know they won’t.
(UM): Why did you film this in black and white?
(SM): Mostly because B&W is a great way to underline duality visually: The room is completely white which might mean that this room is free of any sins, prejudices and “stains” of everyday life. Whereas, all the people in the room are wearing black creating a big contrast with the white room and symbolizing that all of them have a certain negative “baggage”.
(UM): I loved the title: I thought it really captured the essence of the feeling so many of us have deep down that everyone else going to die, but that we are not. And when we realize that’s not true, our attitude is, why me? Was that why you chose this title?
(SM): Its very minimal, yet very evocative even if you won’t watch the short-film. Don’t we all tend to ask ourselves this question all the time? Whether with a good or bad agenda, I believe it’s important to question everything we see, do and experience, and it is what the
protagonist of the story did and that is what got him killed.
(UM): Was the game of Russian Roulette really random? It seems like there was a reason some survived while others didn’t, and that seems to imply that the game was fixed.
(SM): I’d love to let the viewers make that decision. There is certainly a big metaphorical sub-context in the whole story and feel like the way people would fill it with meaning (and the KIND of meaning) would tell them a lot more about themselves.
(UM): Could you tell us what the process of producing this was like? How long did it take to shoot? Did anything interesting happen on set?
(SM): A good friend of mine, Alex, and I were working on some commercial project for some time at that point and we really wanted to make something that is not commercial but rather intimate, artistic and personal. The funny thing is that at that time we were still fully developing our filmmaking skills and being maximalist we were like “Lets do it in one
day!” And we did. To be candid, it was pretty stressful and dynamic, but just as anything – it was an amazing experience.
(UM): The entity with the tray was intriguing. Why do you think her eyes had x’s over them?
(SM): There are many assumptions on who the white entity is: god, justice, government or devil. I usually summarize and unify it in one – authority. Those X’s represent its blindness and senselessness.
(UM): Could you tell us about any upcoming projects?
(SM): Currently I am very excited to finish pre-production on a music video that we had a chance to work on during the summer and I am developing a concept for a new short.