Beauty Marks, a short film directed by alumna Gina Hackett '20, co-written by Hackett and alumnus Waleed Alqahtani '20, produced by alumna Christina Wood '20, and edited by alumnus Cameron Bruce Nelson '20, had its world premiere at the RapidLion - South African International Film Festival in Johannesburg on April 9. Beauty Marks ran in the Student Short program and will soon also screen at the Columbia University Film Festival.
The short follows Ritchie who begins to worry she shouldn’t have left her mother with a handsome drifter after wandering off with his unreliable daughter.
Hackett is a writer, director, and producer who tells partly true stories about troublesome women. Her screenplay, A Bridge Between Us, received SFFILM’s 2019 Sloan Filmmaker Fellowship and was one of six finalists for Tribeca’s Sloan Grand Jury Prize. A Harvard alumna from Wisconsin, Hackett works at Telluride Film Festival each summer and is based in Los Angeles.
Waleed Alqahtani is a Saudi Arabian screenwriter, director, and producer. His work screened at festivals such as Slamdance, Palm Springs, Hamptons, SIFF, and more. His feature film Amal participated in the 2020 Cine Qua Non Lab. His previous work includes Film at Lincoln Center, Cinetic Media, Image Nation Abu Dhabi, and research/editing assistant to writer-director Debra Granik.
Christina Wood is a Canadian-South African producer based between Toronto and New York. She works in film-tech for Vuulr and founded a production label called Binnacle Films. Previously, Wood worked in distribution in London for eOne and interned at Elle Driver, UTA, and Focus Features. She is currently collaborating with Hackett as they work toward a first feature.
The South African International Film Festival was launched in 2015 at The Historic Market Theatre, where it has been held every year since. It is the only film festival in the world with a special focus on feature films from BRICS countries.
