DVAA Member since 2024

Gigi Hozimah

WEBsite: lookatthewall.com

About:

Gigi Hozimah is Saudi American filmmaker and director based in Philadelphia. Her most notable features are "He Belongs To Us," (2017) a psychological horror film, and "That Abandoned Place" (2021), an arthouse drama, her recent film "It's Always That Feeling" 2024 Has won the golden palm Award at the Saudi Film Festival.

Born into a large family and the youngest of 10 siblings, Hozimah lost both parents while still a teenager. She was allowed to study film abroad in England on the condition her oldest brother accompany her - neither of them speaking English at that time. Afterward, and with support from her sister, Hozimah graduated with a Bachelors in Television and Video production from Southhampton University and then continued her studies at Kingston University, earning a Masters in Filmmaking.

First an on-screen television presenter for Al Alamia TV in London, England, Hozimah moved overseas to New York City to start her career in filmmaking. There, she founded Look At The Wall Productions, named for a wall in her studio apartment adorned with movie posters from which she drew her artistic inspiration.

Her feature film debut, "He Belongs To Us," was released to a warm reception in 2019. One critic described her as "One of a kind of her generation...the first Saudi film director to make an art house horror film." In 2021, Hozimah was named an "Inspirational Woman in Hollywood" by Authority Magazine.

Her sophomore feature, "That Abandoned Place," also garnered several positive reviews among film circles, and was awarded Best Sound Design at the 9th Annual Saudi Film Festival in Dammam, Saudi Arabia.

Artist Statement:

There are so many stories ready to be revealed in the smallest moments of a person’s life–in their body language and facial expressions. Whether it’s through my filmmaking or my painting, I desire to explore and express the nuances of my subject's inner life. I’ve always felt that our insecurities held us back from an honest, verbal expression of our emotions. However, the body betrays these feelings, and I’m interested in paying attention to that aspect of the human condition. I do this in how I shape and compose a person in a frame, or through which colors I use to bring them to life. The camera and the canvas can capture so much that we may want to deny, ignore, or we may simply miss. I intend to live in that space with my art.