This Has Already Happened

This Has Already Happened, a fictional expression of a truthful event.

I was confined to my house; a pandemic took over the world and climate fires raged outside. Something inside of me also surfaced. The outside was trying to come inside. The real of the world, the real of my fears, this tension manifested, and an existential horror film emerged. As performer and director, I tried to open something up, and I asked for the ghosts to reveal themselves; I wanted to allow them entry, even if it was a trace.

  • Usama Alshaibi
    Director
  • Jack Dorfman
    Editor
  • James Marlon Magas
    Music
  • Lauren Samblanet
    Creative Consultant
  • Project Type:
    Experimental, Feature
  • Runtime:
    57 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    March 2, 2025
  • Country of Origin:
    United States, United States
  • Shooting Format:
    HD
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Usama Alshaibi

Usama Alshaibi was born in Baghdad, Iraq and spent his formative years living between the United States and the Middle East. He’s an active filmmaker and artist, who works in documentary and fiction, often blurring the line between the two. His films have screened widely at underground and international film festivals, media exhibitions and museums. He’s received grants from organizations such as the MacArthur Foundation, the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, the Playboy Foundation, and the Creative Capital Foundation for the Arts.

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Director Statement

I want to interact with the real and the unreal, a cinema of the seen and unseen. I try and conjure up spirits from the dirt illuminated by the camera, reflexive and instinctive. The story of my practice is that I am living inside the film and the film is living. I want to be free from the imposed linearity of time in this realm, and fracture it within the structure of film, free from the body but made with the body.

Sit in the Silence
Vertical Time Zone
Liminal is the Night
Phone Call from the Past
Phone Call from the Future

This Has Already Happened