Private Project

Resistance: the battle of philadelphia (prologue)

Set in a dystopian, near-future, West Philadelphia, this stand-alone prologue episode to the Resistance web series follows a stealthy hacker’s attempts to dismantle the surveillance tools used by the police to control her community after she learns that two young activists have been tracked down and brutally beaten by riot cops.

Inspired by films like Mamoru Oshii’s Avalon (2001), Lizzie Borden’s Born in Flames (1983), Sam Greenlee’s The Spook Who Sat By The Door (1973) and Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers (1967), the series uses the genres of speculative fiction to tell a historically rich and dramatically complex near-future narrative about the struggle for justice and liberation.

  • M. Asli Dukan
    Director
    M.O.M.M., 73
  • M. Asli Dukan
    Writer
    M.O.M.M., 73
  • M. Asli Dukan
    Producer
    M.O.M.M., 73
  • Anissa Weinraub
    Producer
  • Jennifer Kidwell
    Key Cast
  • Project Type:
    Short, Web / New Media
  • Genres:
    Sci-Fi, Drama
  • Runtime:
    5 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    March 21, 2017
  • Production Budget:
    1,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - M. Asli Dukan

M. Asli Dukan has written and directed numerous short films that have been selected for distinguished festivals across the country, including the BlackStar Film Festival in Philadelphia. She has been the recipient of several grants and awards, most recently the 2016 Transformation Award from the Leeway Foundation. In 2016, she was also named an NBPC 360 Fellow at the National Black Programming Consortium in New York. She is currently in post-production on Invisible Universe, a feature documentary about the history of Black creators in the genres of speculative fiction. Her next projects include the dystopian web series, Resistance: the battle of philadelphia and the anthology horror film, Skin Folk based on the book by the award winning writer, Nalo Hopkinson.

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Director Statement

My artistic concerns as a filmmaker and visual artist are to create work that primarily reflects a Black radical and Black feminist perspective of the world, that engages my audiences with alternative narratives from marginalized communities, and that uses speculative frameworks in which to shape and present the work.