Jay Dockendorf | Director of Naz & Maalik

The film doesn’t set out to defy or define typical ideas of gayness or blackness or teen-ness. Identity, after all, is an ever-shifting circumstance, not a constant, inescapable state of mind. – Jay Dockendorf

‘Naz & Maalik’ is the story of two Muslim black youths who also happen to be closeted gay men. As they go about their day, their peculiar behavior draws the attention of a local FBI agent. The film unfolds casually, following Naz (Kerwin Johnson, Jr.) and Maalik (Curtiss Cook, Jr.) as though we were eavesdropping and learning the pieces of their story as they go about their lives.

 The film takes a very simple approach to a complicated subject, instead of hammering you over the head with a myriad of social issues, writer/director Jay Dockendorf unfolds the story naturally over the course of an entire day. There are no dire moments of senseless violence nor sudden acts of heinous hatred – this is a film meant to leave you with your own thoughts on the story. The film will release on VOD and DVD January 26th, read our review here.

In the meantime, The Hollywood Outsider’s Aaron Peterson sat down with director Jay Dockendorf to discuss his film, from the casting to his approach on such serious topics. Enjoy an insightful interview with a director on the rise.

Listen or read on for our interview with ‘Naz & Maalik’ director, Jay Dockendorf.

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Aaron Peterson: Before we get into the gay Muslim aspect of it, this is your first feature getting released to a wide audience and I assume, for you, casting this kind of film – which is kind of like a make-or-break deal – has got to be a pretty stressful endeavor. So how did you know Kerwin and Curtis were the ones for ‘Naz & Maalik’?

Jay Dockendorf: I didn’t have a clear picture in my mind of what Naz or Maalik looked like. I thought they would probably be African-American, but I was sure they had to be believable as Muslims, as almost anyone in the world could be, given how many people in the world are Muslim. And so, I really only had a specific image of their personalities that I wanted to hit, and I saw about 100 young men for these two roles. I had several of them read both parts and I was looking for chemistry, I was looking for a certain intelligence, I was looking for a certain kind of magnetism. I think both these men are very photogenic and it’s exciting to watch them play these roles and so, I could even imagine them falling in love with each other, I think, and they work well together visually. Once we had them read in their second rounds, their callbacks for casting, they clearly had a chemistry.

I could’ve, ya know I think that with a larger budget, some people would have had the temptation to go out to Hollywood and try to find rising stars and catch someone who had a certain name appeal, like you mentioned – the make-or-break aspect of a first film in some people’s eyes – but I actually didn’t see it in those terms, and that never was a consideration for me. I was excited to find people who were on the same page as I am. You know, this is my first film, it was the first feature for Curtis and Kerwin both, and so, there was a lot of equanimity between the three of us when we were making this. They both have lived in Brooklyn before, so they can really relate to the story and these characters, and they’ve ridden on these trains, they’ve met these people, they’ve seen things these characters have seen in these instances, and they gave of themselves in the rehearsal period. All of that culminated, I think, greatly in their performances that they made with me. I’m not sure I would have had it really any other way.

Aaron: When you bring up the subject matter – two gay black men, inner city, devout Muslims, they must hide their identities, religious guilt – there’s a lot of hot-button topics at play. I’ve read that this idea was sparked from your former roommate. Can you elaborate a little bit on why this was a topic that spoke to you?

Jay: Yea, absolutely. I felt at the time that, bizarrely, all of these issues were present around me, very closely and personally. Although I wasn’t living any of them myself, living with a man who was Muslim and young and gay and closeted to his family, was so remarkable and unlike any other experience I’d had. It was the most poignant, dramatic, and fascinating true-life story I think, I’d maybe ever heard. At the same time we were living in Bedford–Stuyvesant, which is a historically African-American community and has a long, long legacy of activism…to answer your question it really boils down to why all of these things at once?

Well, they were all there when I was writing the film, it was hard to write about anything else, especially when I’m reading these shocking, apparently true stories of rampant police surveillance of the Muslim populations in New York. This is even before Edward Snowden’s revelations had threatened us. A sense that if you make a movie with these characters – black, gay, and Muslim people – it’s interesting, I predicted (people) would spend a lot of time thinking about the issues germane to the lives of these three types of people, and then for one character to embody all of them…it’s hard to imagine many people having the experience of all three at once, so a certain active empathy is required to relate to the characters on almost everyone’s part. And not that there aren’t that many heroic black gay Muslim young men or anything like that, there are, I just think that most people who see this film will have to reimagine themselves in another person, and I was interested in doing that myself, and then encouraging other people to do that as well.

Aaron: Yea, and you did a really interesting thing with the film. Because, I think, a lot of filmmakers would have been tempted to go a little more provoking with the subject matter, where I think you really played it a lot more genuine – and I mean this as a compliment because it went against conventions a little bit – you played it very, this is just a day in their life as they go through these things. It doesn’t end in horrific violence or anything like that. I mean, it’s played like this is what happens in the real world. I like that, and I’m curious why you chose to go that route and not an extremely dramatic route, so to speak?

Jay: Well, thank you. It’s been interesting to see the range of reactions. I feel as if there are some people who are, like you, grateful that the film is going naturalistic, and only sort of blasts off into a slightly absurd space in the third act, but doesn’t end in bodily harm to the individuals, per se. The kind of gratuitous, the kind of violence that is so common in films like this. And then I think there are some that want that, that’s something more dramatic, more exploitive perhaps, more attention grabbing, a better use of the subject matter. But I was always drawn to a certain level of naturalism for these two characters because I wasn’t necessarily all that excited about victimizing them, per se. I thought it was interesting to see how they dealt with the various conflicts in life, the big ones, the blackmail of the sister and…the FBI surveillance. Personally I think that sometimes the thing that can be most dramatic in a person’s, in any given person’s life, is tension with your partner or with a very close friend. I feel like I was excited to explore like, the big emotions that was coming from their argument. An argument that grows and grows over the course of the day, and then comes to a certain head in the third act.

Aaron: Yea, I think people are expecting that. Because we see all these sorts of movies, where they deal with topics like this. It always, almost always at the end comes to a point of some kind of horrific violence. So, it was nice to just see a story unfold.

Jay: Thank you. Interesting thing, one thing I would add is that, I am fascinated by and largely respectful of good storytelling conventions and ‘best practice’ pass downs to the centuries, and it often seems to me like a character should go through some sort of change that can’t be undone. And I think a lot of people turn to violence to satisfy that requirement. But trying to find the emotional change that can’t be undone, or an intellectual shift that’s profound, that was a unique challenge that I think we’re all trying to meet together as a production team.

Aaron: My last question is, in terms of when you’re doing a film of importance, is it something that weighs on you? The importance of the subject matter, or is your primary concern ‘I just want to tell a good story’?

Jay: They became one and the same, at some point. Yes, the importance of telling the story with a certain amount of respectfulness to the subjects, and the various people involved, was paramount throughout the entire making of the film. But I was excited about that because I felt as though, at this point in time, that’s a large component of making any film right. You have the primary story, which is the one that will appear onscreen, and then also part of that is the story that is told alongside the film, you know, in the way people talk about how the film was made. Especially with small films like this, it’s almost inevitably a narrative that comes up – who was behind the film, what’d they do, what kind of controversies are associated with the film, and so forth – there are an incalculable numbers of films. For instance, ‘Blue Is the Warmest Color’ is a movie that comes to mind, and we talked a lot about it on set.

Aaron: It’s a good movie.

Jay: Yea. You know, the love scenes in that film – this Palme d’Or winning, highly acclaimed movie – apparently were shot with a certain reckless abandon for the feelings of the actresses involved, and the actresses were specifically asked to improvise these long, involved lesbian sex scenes. At some point, that became deeply uncomfortable for them and they felt exploited by that process. We tried to learn from that and choreographed our love scenes very tightly, so that our two actors felt like they were being treated a certain kind of dignity, and not being asked to suddenly become enamored with each other in this physical way that’s not professional, or not required of two actors who are expected to learn their lines and give roles, and not necessarily expected to improvise something that I could have done something in my role as director to help them through or guide them through.

Aaron: Thank you so much for your time, I know I have to let you go. I just want to wish you luck on the release, and best wishes.

Jay: Thanks so much, Aaron. I’m really glad you took the chance to ask some questions. I appreciate it.

 

‘Naz & Maalik’ releases to DVD and VOD via Wolfe Video January 26th, 2016.