SHEI blogger Rhiannon Haller attended the Ann Arbor premiere of “Bilal’s Stand” on January 31 as part of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. The Michigan Theater is one of a few venues chosen by Sundance to show official selections from the festival. Bilal’s Stand, written and directed by UM grad Sultan Sharrief, was selected as part of the NEXT category highlighting low/no-budget films.

Julian Gant stars as Bilal Mahdi

Sultan Sharrief’s debut feature film tells a simple, but impressive tale through both its message and creation. Based on a true story, Bilal’s Stand is about a high school senior faced with choosing between his family and his own desires. This coming of age/family conflict theme isn’t exactly novel (see: Billy Elliot, She’s All That, About a Boy, etc.), and while the story is certainly told with style and integrity,Bilal’s innovation lies in its development rather than its message.

In the film, Bilal’s family operates a taxi-stand in Inkster, MI, and like most of the neighborhood, they’re hard on money. When Bilal receives an acceptance letter from the University of Michigan, not only does he have to figure out a way to afford the steep tuition, but he has to convince his family that going away to college doesn’t mean he’s abandoning them. He takes up ice carving in hopes of winning a scholarship, and chooses to carve a phoenix rising out of the ashes which symbolizes the central theme of film; Bilal as the phoenix and the ashes as his lot in life.

The majority of the movie focuses on Bilal’s conflict with family, but it touches on racial, religious and class issues. Unlike Hollywood films, which can blow up the global issues and ignore the more personal ones, Bilal’s focus on family issues is one of its strong points because it’s so honest. In everyday life we deal with problems concerning family and friends first and foremost, and tend to brush upon racial, religious and class conflict every once in a while. Bilal has to deal with a gas station attendant who assumes he’s part of Nation of Islam just because he’s black and Muslim, as well as WASP-y classmates who don’t understand the economic gap between suburban and inner-city schools. But he must deal with his family’s and friends’ accusations of abandonment every day.

The film's director, Sultan Sharrief

Sharrief, who wrote and directed the movie, employed approaches to editing and casting that aren’t really commonplace in filmmaking. Throughout the film, simple animations were overlayed on people and buildings to aid the audience in seeing how Bilal, the main character, views the world he lives in. If you ever watched Disney Channel’s “Lizzie McGuire,” you know what I’m talking about. For example, Bilal has nicknames for the different types of people in his life, such as “puffers” and “bubbles.” Puffers, says Bilal, are the kind of guys who try to make themselves out to be tougher than they really are, and are represented by sketches of puffer fish.  Bubbles are people (usually privileged and white) who live in their own world and don’t understand how things work outside of it. They’re represented by, funnily enough, bubbles.

The director chose to cast a few non-actors in his film, which isn’t too surprising considering its low-budget.  During the credits and a short Q&A with the cast, it was revealed that Sharrief’s former principal plays Bilal’s uncle Malik, and his former shop teacher plays himself in the movie. But where Sharrief really diverts from the standards of moviemaking is in his efforts to involve the community in the film’s development.  As part of the EFEX (Encouraging the Filmmaking Experience) Program, a joint Beyond Blue Productions (Sharrief’s production company) and University of Michigan venture, Metro Detroit high school students had an opportunity to not only learn about the film industry, but to directly participate in it – by holding the boom mic, for example.

The movie does have a couple weak points. Some of the supporting cast falter in their acting ability, either being a little overdramatic (in the case of the actress who plays Ally, Bilal’s ice-carving partner and occasional antagonist) or lacking authenticity (surprisingly, Mr. Usztics, who plays himself). Additionally, the sound levels are iffy at times and it can be hard to hear the voiceovers when there’s background music. But Julian Gant, who plays Bilal, seems completely at ease in front of the camera and carries the movie through its weaker moments.  Gant’s Bilal is believable, charming, and at times, provides comedic relief. No Kramer needed here.

Gant’s naturalness, the community engagement aspect of the film,  and the semi-autobiographical nature of the story (the credits reveal that Bilal is Sultan Sharrief’s on-screen counterpart), is what makes Bilal’s Stand one of the purest, most honest low-budget films released in the past few years. Bilal is not the only phoenix rising out of the ashes – so is the entire movie and everything that went into its creation. Bilal’s Stand transitioned from being a project that was thousands of dollars in debt to a movie with a slot at one of the most respected independent film festivals in the world. And filmmaking might just have gone from something white guys did in Hollywood to something anybody can do in their own backyard.