untitled (halo)’s Ariana Mamnoon premieres Portrait of Omeed short film

Ariana Mamnoon, a Los Angeles-based musician who’s part of the rising indie rock band untitled (halo), also makes short films. Today, The FADER exclusively premieres her latest, Portrait of Omeed, a seven-minute short that peers into the life and music of a young Iranian-American musician named Omeed Almassi.

A poetic slice-of-life vignette, it spotlights Almassi during an afternoon at his house practicing his cello and rehearsing punk songs in his kitchen. In between, he fields a sweet call from his mom, chatting casually with her in Farsi as she checks in on how he’s doing. Though the concept is simple, it taps into a rich, lived reality that many creative children of immigrants will find familiar — including myself, thinking back to my childhood violin lessons and switching between Mandarin and English with my parents.

Mamnoon, who’s also Iranian-American, met Almassi at a warehouse punk show in L.A. where he was performing with his band White Rafi. “I was like, woah, there is no way this cool punk kid is singing/rapping in Farsi and making it so so so cool,” she writes to The FADER in an email. When she found out from a mutual friend that Almassi also played the cello, the gears in her mind immediately started whirring. “All of this existing together, Iranian, cellist, grunge, I was like, this person is worth making a project on.”

Shot by Alicia Afshar, the film has already been shortlisted at a slew of festivals including East Village New York Film Festival, Independent Short Awards, and Indie Short Awards. Get an early view of it below, and read on for a short conversation with Mamnoon.

The concept of the film is simple but it does a great job at contrasting two sides of Omeed's identity. What was the decision behind keeping the focus of the film strictly on these two music performances?

I love Omeed's relationship to both styles of music, and his relationship to highlighting his Iranian heritage via his music. My filmmaking is inherently simple. I like to make poetic vignettes, and offer moments into people's lives that are done in a more dream-like way. I didn't need to create an over the top story to show how talented Omeed is.

You're Iranian-American as well. Do the themes explored in this film resonate with your life and your relationship to your identity as well?

Yeah absolutely. As I grow older, the more I want to connect to my culture. I love having access to such a vibrant culture. I get to go home and hear my parents speak Farsi, hear Iranian music float around their home, learn good values and morals. This film specifically navigates two sides of an identity, cello and guitar, Iranian and American. That is something I definitely grew up with, but now I see how my upbringing has made me the person I am today, I wouldn't change it.

What do you hope to convey about Iranian-American culture and identity through this film?

I hope Portrait of Omeed brings attention to the cool kids in music and art that are children of immigrants, or have a culture worth displaying. Iranian culture is precious, it's gentle, it's colorful, it's strong, like so many other cultures. These stories need to be told, and shared.

You're also in the band (untitled) halo. What do you like about filmmaking that you don't get to explore as much while making music?

With halo I get to write about make-believe and create lyrics and sounds that convey heavy emotions or are simply for fun. Filmmaking allows me to create more challenging visual ideas, ideas that stem from my childhood and my memories. I've always loved film. Filmmaking allows me to let go, to share other people's stories, to create new worlds...I mean to be honest both untitled (halo) and making these short videos are imperative to one another. My friend just sent me a passage from a book he was reading on playwriting, he told me he sees my essence as a creative act. That made my day, but the line I took away from the text was "Writing is acting is directing is living your life...it is all the same thing." I think that is how I feel about my films, my songs.