Welcome to Reel Talk, where we deep-dive into the minds of the industry’s finest—directors, producers, actors, writers, and all the unsung heroes on set. Each conversation gives a glimpse into their craft, passion, and the stories that drive them.

This week, I’m sitting down with Alexander Farah, whose work carries a quiet but phenomenal power to tell delicate and poise narratives–those that that rip you open whole.

In this conversation, we discuss the creative process of Alex’s latest short, One Day This Kid (2024), and the concepts of survival, entangled intersectionality, queerness, and all the fine lines we walk every day without much intention.

And of course, all while unearthing vulnerability and amplifying artistic accountability and integrity especially amidst the uncertainties that are happenning in the world—qualities Alex deeply embodies.

Creating One Day This Kid: Inspiration, Queerness & Intersectionality.

“One day this kid will feel something stir in his heart and throat and mouth. One day this kid will reach a point where he senses a division that isn’t mathematical. One day this kid will talk.”

One Day This Kid follows Hamed, a first-gen Afghan Canadian man, through pivotal chapters of his life as he steps into the skin he knows he belongs to while navigating the complex relationship with his father.

The starting text: David Wojnarowicz’s Untitled (One Day This Kid…)

TP: Your film is inspired by David Wojnarowicz artwork, a photo-text titled “Untitled (One Day This Kid). Do you remember what you felt when you first read it?

Absolutely.

Funny enough, I first saw the text through someone’s Instagram story while they were visiting the Whitney Museum, about 6 or 7 years ago.

When I read the first few sentences, I thought, “This is such a raw take on the experience.” But as I kept reading, it got darker and darker—that’s when I realized how a two-minute read could be so powerful. What stuck with me most was the punchline at the end:

TP: What made it different from anything you’ve seen before, that it stayed with you for so long?

For this text, I think a few lines into it, you sort of guess the gist of where it is going.

But seeing it written with the cadence of a nursery rhyme, with a primitive quality addressing these dark topics aimed at a child makes the material feel incredibly graphic and heavy. And even though the text was from the early nineties, you can feel how it heavy it still weighs today.

For me, the time I read the text was also very close to when I had started coming out, so every part it of resonated with me. I knew it was going to stay for a while.

TP: At what point in the process of making “One Day This Kid” did you realize that your film was going to take on a life and soul of its own, separate from the text?

Good question.

I think it was when I realized I no longer needed the text as a voiceover.

At first, I adapted the text to serve as a voiceover for the film. But as I started creating scenes with their own dialogues—between the father and the mother, or a passerby saying something to the child—I knew my work had begun to take on a life of its own, away from the text.

Certainly, the text stands beautifully on its own. Yet, I didn’t want to muddy it or make it feel busy by attributing visuals to it in such a direct, unsubtle way–it felt a bit commercial.

I’m also not the author, David Wojnarowicz—white, growing up in the nineties with similar circumstances, but also living under conditions vastly different from my own.

On queerness & intersectionality.

TP: Throughout the film, we see your character Hamed confronting and eventually embracing his intersectionality—being queer, Afghan, a son of immigrants, and religious. How have these various identities shaped his experience as a queer person across the different chapters of his life?

I think, as a child—and if you ask a lot of queer people—some will say they knew they were queer as early as 3, 4, or 5 years old. You’ll often question: “What is exactly is this?”

It’s obviously not necessarily rooted in sex or the male form but rather in the curiosity and sense of wonder we experience as children.

There are a lot of narratives that explore that teen phase, especially when it comes to the male form, masturbation, porn, exposure to other boys in locker rooms, and bullying, to name a few.

There’s this scene where Hamed learns how to pump gas for the first time.

When I was younger, I remember watching my dad pump gas and questioning: “Why do I feel like I’ll never be able to do that?”

This car—an entity of masculinity and patriarchy—made me realize this very rough and tumble reflection of a man, and I knew this behaviour was never going to live inside me.

Again, putting up that wall at such a young age, you can’t help but wonder where it comes from. And the first part of the film explores that curiosity embedded in a child.

Now, as an adult, I didn’t want to create a narrative that romanticizes being out: he’s out and everything is great. Oftentimes, we see stories painting this perfect life where everyone is just happy, and coming out enables the characters to rebel without a cause or gallivant around town.

I want to create something that adds a few more layers and nuances of being a queer person of colour–someone who is raised in a religious household, while at the same time not resenting their parents, finding a way to hold onto culture and remembering where they came from.

Unearthing the self: writing & directing.

TP: With the film being so intimate to you, was the creative process cathartic? Or was it difficult to pinpoint exactly how you felt?

It was both.

I knew that my film was going to be a tapestry painting all of these moments from youth, teenage-hood, to adulthood.

Certainly, the process was very tricky because I don’t know how universal my experiences would be for others, especially when talking about the memories of curiosity as a kid. It was always an expression of femininity, but those experiences are quite unique to me.

Then, when moving on to Hamed’s teenage years, I began looking at the forms of exposure that feel indicative of being gay, queer, or different. It’s when you start seeing yourself in relation to others.

Some time has passed, and I’ve been able to reflect on those situations with the proximity I have to them, which has helped a lot in directing, too.

I’m able to move through the scene much quicker and easier, and hopefully, in a way that feels more tender and heartfelt.

TP: You mentioned an essential part of your directing process: before a scene, you would sit and journal your own thoughts. What is the intention behind that?

It’s for me to feel more deeply connected to the script and more in tune with the performances of the actors.

Usually on set, I’m a pessimist, always thinking about anything that could go wrong. So when it comes to performances, especially working with children, I have to make peace with the fact that it could be chaotic or even a train wreck.

Knowing that, using the time before to sit down allows me to find multiple ways to stay connected to the material. For example, if something isn’t working, I can pull something else out and make an immediate adjustment.

Luckily, I’m always surrounded by key players I really trust, and by the time I take the time to feel connected, the captains of cinematography, production design, and all the crew members help coordinate everything else.

Some questions I’d ask myself are, “What did it feel like 20 years ago?” or “How do I get under that?” 

I try to answer them all so I can direct and orchestrate a little more realistically.

“It’s because women, especially in queer men’s lives, represent a layered experience.”

TP: I think the most powerful scene of the film is the pool scene, where young Hamed’s gaze, so intentionally intricate, replaces verbal expression. This silence then carries into his adulthood.

Many queer films use silence to paint the experience—why is it such a powerful tool for understanding queerness at a young age?

That’s a great question.

I think the concept of otherness at that age inherently prompts this sort of recoiling, not necessarily just as a queer person, but also as someone who falls out of the margins. Someone who identifies as a minority, a person of colour, a woman. Anyone.

I think that’s why so many queer people love fantasy, pop culture, music, and celebrities—vessels to escape the reality they’re in. They can connect with these figures and representations of the life they wish to live.

I was thinking about how many young gay men play as women when they’re playing fighting video games.

It’s because women, especially in queer men’s lives, represent a layered experience: “In some ways, I want to be her, but I also love her, and I feel safe with her.” For cis straight women, this connection grows out of safety and kinship, which is very special, but it can fade as we grow older—oftentimes, if/when these women marry and start families.

For many gay men, that can be a bit of a grieving process.

Constructing the Visuals of One Day This Kid

TP: You and your dear collaborator, Farhad Ghaderi, have worked on multiple projects before, and he is the cinematographer for this film ?How much freedom do you give each other in terms of expression? When does your vision end, and when does his begin, and how has your relationship with Farhad evolved as collaborators?

With Farhad, because we’re so close outside of our projects, I’m conscious of how the line between hanging out and working starts to blur when we begin a new project. Laughs.

I often feel like I’m taking up all of his time, but when we were just a couple of months away from shooting, Farhad wouldn’t give that time to anyone else. There’s a grace and bond between us that makes it feel like even our hangouts are part of the work.

Farhad will know, when reading a script, why I wrote what I wrote and have an instinctive sense of what it’ll look like.

We’ll watch things, debate what we love and hate, and use those moments to bring new insights into the project.

TP: Your entire film is shot on 35mm film, covering all three chapters of Hamed’s life. Why did you choose not to switch to digital for the final chapter as a natural progression?

I wanted a uniform aesthetic and texture throughout the film, and shooting on 35mm gives it a sense of cohesion.

I didn’t want the adult chapter to feel like a sharp contrast to Hamed’s childhood and teenage years by switching to digital. His identity is still evolving, and I wanted to emphasize the shift from Hamed as a young kid to an adult still reconciling his relationship with his father.

For me, the most important thing was maintaining the emotional remnants and intensity Hamed carries throughout the three chapters of his life. Staying within that visual cohesion helped preserve those intense emotions.

Audience Reception & Evolving Relationship with the Film & Self.

TP: How does the process of writing and editing your film on your own compare to the experience of presenting it to an audience?

Writing and editing can feel lonely, as they are deeply solitary experiences.

When working on something as personal as One Day This Kid, it’s easy for many of us to get stuck in a tunnel of drawing from my our experiences and scripting them exactly as they unfolded in real life.

It becomes a matter of, “This is exactly how it was for me, so this is how I’m going to write it.”

But as you start sharing your work—first with a small circle, then a larger one, and eventually public audiences—you’re faced with this question: “Does it make sense to others? Is there a universal quality to it?”

I’ve thought about this a lot since I’m still early in my career as a writer. When I’m writing from personal experience, I don’t always know how it’s going to resonate with a broader audience—even if that audience is, for instance, queer and Middle Eastern.

So showing the film to a larger audience has been eye-opening, to say the least.

Evolving Relationship with One Day This Kid.

TP: Has your relationship with the film changed now that you are encountering different receptions?

Yeah, absolutely.

When I was editing the film—a very long process because I kept stepping away and revisiting it—I often thought, “This is garbage,” or “This isn’t worth pursuing,” or “This isn’t going anywhere.”

I was nervous that no one would watch it and even considered just releasing One Day This Kid online.

And it was very easy to just be debilitated by those thoughts.

But once we started screening it for wider audiences—people were moved, crying, and reaching out to me—the reception felt so raw and reflective of my own experience. That’s when I could finally say to myself, “Okay, something here is resonating with people and feels authentic.”

It was something very special.

My relationship with the film is always evolving.

Even now, after watching it more than five times on the big screen, sometimes I’m gentle with myself, and sometimes I’m not. It’s really challenging, especially since I’ve never watched something I’ve made this many times on the big screen.

But I’m figuring that part out.

Now.

TP: Where are you now as a filmmaker?

This is the question of the century.

After doing another short, which I hope won't take me another 5-10 years to follow up, I’m learning what I’d like for the future from showcasing One Day This Kid at various festivals.

I'm leaning towards writing something set in the world of One Day This Kid, but instead of spanning across a lifetime, I’d like to focus on one time period in adulthood, as it’s closer to where I am now emotionally.

TP: How have you honed your craft and sensibility, evolving both as an artist and as a person? What materials inspire you emotionally and intellectually?

I think there’s no accident to finally figuring out my tone and sensibility. Everything I’ve made and directed revolves around family and the complicated dynamics of family. Tone-wise, I know my work skirts a little on melodrama, and and I don’t mind leaning into that a bit more.

I was having this conversation with Farhad the other day, about a screening I attended in Montreal. I was sitting in the back row, watching the audience as the One Day This Kid played. At the end, during the voicemail scene, I heard someone audibly weeping, and moved me so much that they were moved.

I realized that between One Day This Kid and Meet You at the Light, maybe I’ve been focused on eliciting emotions that lead to tears. But maybe there are other emotions to elicit that aren’t just someone crying.

[Meet You At The Light is a music video Alex directed for Desirée Dawson, which has won Grand Jury Winner for Best Music Video at SXSW]

I think when you find something you’re good at, you lean into it.

But I told Farhad that it’s time to shift gears and explore other feelings that can connect with the audience. While I’ve done emotional depth before, I want to explore kinetic energy, happiness, and those highs.

and that might mean writing something different or exploring aspects that aren’t directly autobiographical.

Filling the Blank

TP: The title itself is open-ended: One Day This Kid. What would you fill in the blank–one day this kid…?

That’s a good question.

One day this kid will be happy? I don’t know, and I’m not sure what the answer to that is.

I really want to sit with this question, and maybe the answer is that there is no answer. It’s a poignant way of framing the relationship to the film, so I’ll think about that.

TP: What makes you really hopeful?

I think the people I surround myself with make me hopeful—this generation of voices, not only in filmmaking but also artists and creatives who are activists.

I feel hopeful because of the number of people affected by the world and its events, who feel compelled to take action and speak out against the inhumane things happening.

As of right now, I wish there was a more hopeful answer, and maybe that will come at some point.

Stay in Touch!

Alexander Farah

Instagram: @heyitsalexfarah | Website: alexanderfarah.com | More on One Day This Kid programming at TIFF.

The Produced - Thanh Lieu

For collaboration inquiries, please shoot me email at [email protected] or my Instagram @the.produced.