A scene from the documentary “The Bleaching Syndrome” by Eiman Mirghani.
Doha: After her subject backed out of the project due to great reluctance to speak openly on the issue, filmmaker Eiman Mirghani turned her camera on herself becoming the subject of her own film, “The Bleaching Syndrome”, this week’s featured short film presented by Doha Film Institute (DFI).
“I remember feeling terrified. I have never been someone who is comfortable in front of a camera, and I just did not imagine myself doing that,” said the Sudanese-Egyptian filmmaker on her decision to take a different approach on her documentary which looks into the troubling skin lightening cosmetics industry.
She said that initially her intention was “to follow and speak with someone who uses these products just to understand why – why does she feel the need to use them, when was she introduced to them and what does it mean for other people who might feel the need to change themselves, might feel that they are not good enough and feel that they don’t fit in.”
Her original plan, however, did not work out because her subject declined to speak about the issue, but with some encouragement from world-renowned filmmaker Rithy Panh who mentored her, she began to look inwards exploring “a topic that touched me personally for so many years.”
“I started to talk about my own personal experience with skin bleaching which began at the age of 13 and how I battled with and eventually made peace and fell in love with my own blackness and my own identity,” she said.
Mirghani, who was raised in Doha, has always been interested in pushing boundaries through her works, and through this film, she hopes to inspire people to be proud of their own identity.
“I hope that when people watch this film they find pride in who they are, they find happiness and comfort in who they are, and they accept themselves for who they are,” she said.
She added: “I hope that when people watch this film they realize that there really is no point in trying to change themselves because everybody has a purpose, everybody was created the way they were created for a reason and they just need to find that purpose and they need to find that reason.”
Upon graduating with a BA in Media & Film Studies from the University of Nottingham in 2015, Mirghani started working in Doha. Her directorial debut in 2017 was the short film “Is That All There Is?”, a neo-noir, crime film which premiered in various festivals worldwide.
Produced as part of DFI’s annual Documentary Lab in 2018, “The Bleaching Syndrome” screened at 2018 Ajyal Film Festival , 2019 Sarajevo Film Festival and other international film festivals.
The Bleaching Syndrome was uploaded on Thursday on DFI’s YouTube channel as part of the second season of the Institute’s Short Film of the Week initiative. Launched in April, the initiative brings the very best of DFI-supported films for film enthusiasts to enjoy in the comfort of their own homes, while lending support to Qatari films and Arab cinema.
