SECRET LIFE OF MUSLIMS
We collaborated with Smartypants on The Secret Life of Muslims series by creating the animated pilot for their second season, which premiered on The New York Times Opinion Section with over 100 thousand views on the first day of its release. The short is called “The Secret History of Muslims in America” and is based on a conversation between comedian Negin Farsad and Prof. Hussein Rashid of Barnard College. The Emmy and Peabody awards-nominated series consist of short first-person documentary films that use humour and empathy to subvert stereotypes. The first season has been viewed more than 35 million times! The series director Joshua Seftel is known for his Emmy-nominated Lost and Found, a documentary film about Romania’s orphaned and abandoned children; the anti-war film War Inc., a political satire starring John Cusack, Ben Kingsley and Marisa Tomei, as well as the groundbreaking Emmy Award-winning television program Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.
In March 2019, SECRET LIFE OF MUSLIMS IN AMERICA won the prestigious Wilbur Award for Short Documentary, a selection made by the Religion Communicators Council (RCC) which has been encouraging understanding and respect among faith groups for over 90 years and promotes excellence in the communication of religious faith and positive values through a variety of secular media. Or in other words, as our partners from Smatrypants put it “it’s like the Emmy for media working on subjects of religion”.
In April we became a Vimeo Staff Pick!
Series Director: Joshua Seftel
Animation Director/Producer: Maria Stanisheva
Design/Animation: Dmitry Yagodin
Sound Design: Bobb Barito
Executive Producers: Hussein Rashid, Joshua Seftel
Producers: Lindsay Blatt, Erika Frankel, Anna Bick Rowe
© 2018 Smartypants [3’23”]
