A fabulous, queer Muslim beauty entrepreneur must figure out how to compete in a Shark Tank-like product pitch contest after suffering an untimely allergic reaction.
Such is the logline for Poreless, a biting, commentative short currently screening at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. Headlined and produced by Akbar Hamid, the performer is making a plenty big statement with his short feature, and Peter Gray spoke with the multi-hyphenate out of the festival about reclaiming his identity as a gay Muslim, the cinematic nature of the film itself, and his Australian ambitions.
You’ve described Poreless as this full circle, soul-deep moment, and it’s about reclaiming joy, your identity and your voice. What part of your identity felt most reclaimed in the process of making it? And did it show up on screen for us?
Yeah, I think the Muslim part of it. I think with all world religions or organizations, you feel that they reject you if you’re not a certain way. I think it was really incredible to have a script that brought that to light in a comedic way. Also for the script to have three siblings that are all gay and Muslim? I think that was really fun, and healing in a way. I come from a family of four, and the eldest, my sister, is a lesbian, and I’m the youngest and I’m gay. It’s like, two out of the four kids for these, as everybody would say, “Poor Muslim parents” are gay (laughs). It was also very funny to reclaim the joke that’s in the script, where all the executives are too afraid to say how “we all look the same.” It’s such a good joke! And we really leaned into that.
It was also the fact that (my character) being Muslim and gay was just part of the story, but wasn’t the story. Like, if you replaced that character with another gay person, it’s the same struggle with identity, right? A black person, a Latinx, or Middle Eastern…I think what’s really nice is you can plug in anybody searching for identity and looking in the wrong places. At the end of the day it’s about self worth and knowing that it’s all within. It doesn’t matter how pretty you look or how successful you are.
I did love how the film plays with the idea of pitching in that Shark Tank-like manner. How do you see that reflecting real world pressures of queer entrepreneurs or creatives of colour selling their stories in a palatable way?
I think we have to change, or we feel we have to change who we are sometimes in those rooms, right? Even now, I have multiple different businesses, including a tech gaming startup I had launched a few years ago, and we did the first Metaverse pride, but there were moments where you’re walking into a potential investor meeting, and it’s traditionally straight white men, especially in tech, and you ask yourself if you need to modify your behaviour. Do we not lean into the fact that we’re really about the LGBT community? Do we make it more about diversity? You think about those things in real pitches, so I think the film, him thinking about pitching his skin product, and he’s having this horrible allergic reaction, as well as not being confident in himself, and it’s like that white beauty versus embracing the fact that this is what people want to see.
The film is not just about intersectional identity, it’s that ambition and aesthetic brilliance. Is there the hope that other filmmakers from historically marginalized identities will be inspired by your approach?
I hope so. I mean, we brought together such an incredible cast and crew. Bill Kirstein was our cinematographer, and he shot the most recent Mean Girls. (Poreless) is like a Mean Girls meets Ugly Betty, and I do hope people take away that comedy can be tough. It’s hard to land, and you have to have a really good writer, and the cast has to be really good to land the jokes, so the audience really receives it in an authentic way. I hope that people see that these kind of comedies can be successful. Yes, we need the trauma stories, because they are beautiful stories, but I hope that filmmakers from marginalized communities will lean into this. I think it’s healing. It’s uplifting.
Obviously we made an ambitious, big short. This was a learn as you go kind of (production), but it ended up being a bigger budget, and I think that shows in the cinematography. But it’s really about lighting and cinematography and directing and writing. It could be done on a low budget too, and it would just be one scene, but when you’re doing a 15 minute short, the writing better be epic. And the directing and editing has to be really good!
But I learned so much about lighting. It’s crazy to see the end result. I just learned all the importance of so much behind the camera, and I think it’s important, as actors, and some may argue with me on this, but all of the stuff behind the camera is maybe more important, because even if someone isn’t carrying their weight in a role, if it’s beautifully edited, you can save the film.
Mentioning performances though, someone who is just hilarious in this is Allyce Beasley…
Oh my God, she had us on the floor! She’s such an incredible actor, and she’s been (acting) for decades, but she would have to kind of refresh her lines every now and then. She would then actually say these lines that were even better. She always had a little bit of a spin on it, and she would mix things up. But they were so good! She did exactly what she needed to do. People could literally not be quiet on set because they were just exploding in laughter. She’s so brilliant. We were lucky to have her.
I love what we’re seeing with queer stories as of late. These stories are being told the way we want them to. It’s not just a tokenism. I’m so happy something like Poreless exists, and it really is so, so funny. Congratulations on the film, and obviously playing at something like Tribeca too.
Thank you. Thank you for the kind words. It means a lot. We are still in the running for SXSW Sydney, and, I mean, you’re in Australia…so, let’s make that happen (laughs). We need an Australian premiere.
Poreless is screening as part of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, running between June 4th and 15th, 2025. For more information, head to the official site here.
