Private Project

Rearview Mirror

Rear View Mirror [[RVM]] is a web series about an unsuspecting cab driver who helps a woman in distress only to get caught up in a tale of a secret pregnancy and possibly murder.

When Selvan, a driver with a ride-sharing app, picks up Kriti from an uninhabited dead-end street, he knows immediately that something is wrong. All she’ll tell him is that she needs to get away. Set in a loosely knit Indian community, Selvan decides to help her escape. When she disappears leaving nothing but a bloodied sheet behind, he returns to her neighborhood to find out more. Neighbors talk in his backseat, hinting at an unwed pregnancy and felony murder.

Soon, Selvan finds himself suspected by the cops and her family. The forces of patriarchy are out to reclaim Kriti and the legal system is determined to imprison her—whose side will Selvan take?

  • Shaheen Nazerali
    Director
  • Anisha Sridhar
    Writer
  • John Flynn
    Producer
    The Garden Left Behind (SXSW 2019), Rain (Amazon)
  • Gayatri Patel Bahl
    Key Cast
    "Kriti"
    Tina (Short 2019), Law & Order SVU, Let's Dance (Bollywood)
  • Vishwas
    Key Cast
    "Selvan"
    The Visit (Vimeo Staff Pick 2017)
  • Project Type:
    Web / New Media
  • Genres:
    Noir, Thriller
  • Production Budget:
    12,000 USD
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital Sony FS7 & FS5
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Shaheen Nazerali

Shaheen Nazerali is director and video editor. She directed her first film in college without knowing what filmmaking was. She learned a lot. After graduating and a stint in the non-profit sector, in 2010 she took a filmmaking lab where she learned to better shoot and how to edit. She made her next film, a documentary-narrative mix, which screened at MIX NYC Film Festival. She continued to make experimental shorts, working on projects for friends, and finally in 2013 she broke into "the industry" with a post-PA position on an MTV series titled Rebel Music. In 2015, she found a close collaborator in Anisha Sridhar while in a writer's collective together. They joined forces to develop content that centered South Asian characters and rooted their stories within their communities. The also sought to create directing and writing opportunities for themselves, respectively, and Rearview Mirror did that, too.

In November she directed one: a two-minute launch video of Tommy John Schiavoni, running for State Senate (NY D-1).

Shaheen's main source of employment is as a video editor. Her work includes social media videos for big beauty brands like Elle, Harpers Bazaar, Town & Country, and more currently for WW online. Short docs she’s edited have screened at DOC-NYC and are on PBS online. Her wide scope of filmmaking experience range from talent wrangler on a Netflix original to field producing for feature documentary Hydration. Visit her portfolio for a full list of employment. B.A. Bates College.

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Director Statement

Shaheen's vision is to create women centric stories that are controversial and whose protagonists break from tradition. She imagines characters that are rebellious and driven to challenge the status-quo. She wants her work to invoke consideration for the choices people make, driving a viewer's impulse to put themselves in another's shoes. Whether directing a dramedy or a thriller, Shaheen's aesthetic and vision carries with it a streak of dreamy and dark, which you will see in deep strokes in Rearview Mirror.

Director's that inspire her include, Nadine Labaki, Melina Matsoukas, Wes Anderson, and Martin Scorsese.