Nuh Omar officially started his career in 2007 with music videos, shorts and worked as an assistant director as well. Born and raised in Karachi, Pakistan, Omar was lucky enough to be surrounded by entertainers, journalists, and artists. According to the young filmmaker, he grew behind the scenes and on the sets. And for the sake of pursuing his passion, he got enrolled in The New York Film Academy where he studied filmmaking.
“I went to the New York Film Academy when I was 18, Full Sail University at 20, graduated as valedictorian with a number of student awards, and then my friends and I filled a U-Haul and drove across the country to Los Angeles,” he told Instep in an exclusive interview when asked about how he ended up at the film academy and later in Hollywood.
“It’s where we all wanted to be, it’s the hub of the industry in the United States. It’s where I’ve wanted to be my whole life and it was just a four day drive with a few dollars in my pocket and some friends for laughs,” said Omar, who is based in Hollywood and has lived and worked in Los Angeles, New York, Karachi, and Dubai.
Omar went on to say that he always wanted to be a filmmaker and that he was one of those kids who took his parents’ video camera and shot home movies about super heroes and action stars, dragging his younger brother into them as the subject of his films such as Incredible Hulk and X-Men. “I even developed storyboards for these ‘projects’ as a child before I even knew what a storyboard was. Telling stories was just something I’ve felt in my blood, my veins are filled with celluloid,” he asserted.
Talking about his previous projects, Omar shared that besides doing music videos and shorts early on in his career; he wrote and directed projects for conglomerates locally, interviewed people from American rock stars to members of the UN. “Moreover, I have done a lot of web based new media content, advertisements, YouTube channel work, proof of concepts for new media shows.”
The filmmaker has an award winning short film, called We’re American’s, Eh?, to his credit which he wrote and produced in the past. Directed by his long time producer Christian Villarreal, the quirky short was about two Canadian’s trying to cross the US border. “We’re American’s, Eh? won two awards in the film racing competition, which Christian and I never went to receive.”
When asked whether those who have a degree in filmmaking have an upper hand on those who don’t and why, Omar responded, “No, I don’t believe so. Film has a language that is universal. I know many hardworking people skilled in their respective fields within film, who had never even thought about working in film. That’s the beauty of this industry, it’s a language anyone can learn, anyone can embrace as long as they have the right tools. Werner Herzog stole a 35mm camera from the Munich Film School when he was younger because it was the tool he needed to make his films. I’m not condoning theft obviously, but all he had was the passion for his dream, and I think anyone can do that regardless of their training.”
Presently Omar is working on two projects; he’s producing a TV pilot based on the life of Cleopatra, and he is also the lead writer, director, and co-founder of producer Christian Villarreal’s The Fortress of Dorkness. As for Cleopatra, Omar revealed that it is an episodic historical epic being developed by writer Mark Davis about the infamous ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty’s life. “What drew me to the project was how eloquent Mark’s writing is. His vivid and meticulous attention to detail and knowledge of the history and lore shows how passionate he is about the journey we’re going on. It’s exciting. I’m enthralled; this is a big one and I’m glad to be part of it.”
Omar continued, “The Fortress of Dorkness is a new media channel that covers obscure movie and comic factoids, histories, and terminologies, brainstormed by producer Christian Villarreal. And by obscure I really mean obscure, it’s an insane amount of research looking for things people never knew about their favorite films, shows, heroes and villains and ones they’ve never heard of. It’s really genius if you ask me, when Christian pitched it to me I loved his vision for it. It’s been on hiatus for a few months as Christian and I are vastly evolving it. Soon you’ll see some old segments removed, and some new content added, such as shorts and even web-comics.”
The writer-director also revealed that a big re-launch of The Fortress of Dorkness is coming in 2020. “Given where some of our videos from the previous format have been featured, we’re confident in the direction it’s taken. It was never something I saw myself doing, but we have a lot of fun. It’s the most freedom I’ve had with a project, and Chris is an old friend so it’s a good collaboration.”
As far as Omar’s project(s) are concerned and how they are relevant to the Pakistani community, the writer-director explained that he’s always tried to keep his themes and topics fairly broad. “We tend to localize and fixate on things in a single point, when there are messages and themes in our country that are rarely touched upon. Mental health is a touchy subject as well as loneliness and minorities. I think as a filmmaker it’s my job to think outside of this bubble and the stereotypes the world places on my country, which even we place on ourselves sometimes. I want to show that we are just like everyone else. We have the same problems, but the situations those problems bloom in are different.”
“As for my own significance to the country,” he noted, “So few Pakistanis seem to get global recognition; I think sometimes we like to think we do, but having been given the advantage of living in two vastly different cultures, people don’t know about us, we’re alien to them. Even abroad rarely do I see Pakistanis mingle outside of their own cultures. They create pockets of ‘little Pakistan’. That’s never sat well with me, how will our own culture evolve if people just have cliches and stereotypes to go off? So when a Pakistani born kid is living and working in what is arguably the most popular entertainment industry in the world, it’s a big deal. And that’s not for the people or the culture, it’s for the country.”
On a parting note, Nuh Omar spoke about his future projects and informed that besides his above mentioned projects, he is focusing on two other features; The Imaginary Friend Society and The Domestication of Henry.“The former is a fantasy film about imaginary friends, while the latter is a noir-drama about a writer who begins to enact the cliches he’s writing into his stories.
My focus was on child-friendly content for years, but recently due to some personal experiences I’ve started focusing on a far more adult field and the stories could be realistic or fantastical, but they are rooted in the harsh realities we all experience in life. Before the features I’d like to get another short out. I’m scripting one based on Poveglia, about the last plague victim on an isolated and abandoned island. It’s a very sad story, but it’s reflective of a certain kind of emotion. These projects are scripting at the moment,” he concluded.
