MissMe: The Artful Vandal - by Mohammad Gorjestani
At the height of a successful career at one of the world’s top advertising agencies, renowned Montreal-based “MissMe” quit her job and took to the streets to become an underground street artist. Her goal? Self-liberation, authenticity, and to be a loud, counter-voice to the objectification of women in mainstream advertising.
BUREAU: When you decided to make this short film, where did you start?
I met MissMe in San Francisco and followed her work on Instagram. I was impressed by the balance of vulnerability and tenacity in her work. When I was approached to contribute to the "Make it Happen" series, I immediately thought of her and her work. The fact that she used to work in advertising, and then quit to become an agent against the mainstream agenda, was fascinating to me. It represented someone who took action against something most people just write in the comments section about.
BUREAU: What kind of hurdles do you face as a filmmaker working in short film?
My ambition always exceeds my budgets so that's one thing. Second, on a project like this, was the strategy around how to film her "illegal" work and process without drawing attention to ourselves. So our crew and team did a tremendous job of tactically shooting this film. Our Cinematographer, Noe Chavez, is an excellent skater so we had him shooting on his skateboard in case we needed to ever make a quick exit from a situation.
BUREAU: What projects are you working on next, and how can people who are interested best support that work?
I'm working on the feature length expansion of my short film "Refuge" which is going to be exciting, and in addition to that I'm working on two short form doc series. The first being the "Happy Birthday Project", which are portraits of the loved ones affected by Police Shootings. Each film takes place on the first birthday after the deaths. We just released a film on Philando Castile, and will be releasing a film on Mario Woods soon. The second series is the "Boombox Collection" which are portraits of the working class of hip hop Pioneers. We are about to release the first film on Boots Riley (The Coup), with Adbusters, and have Zion I coming up next.
