We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Aminah Hughes. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Aminah below.
Aminah, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
As a writer, the running theme in my work, whether through poetry, prose, songs or screenplays, seems to be trauma recovery. As a filmmaker and photographer, I’m very much focused on compelling imagery. For me, the magic happens when I get to combine those two passions and invite the marriage of truth and beauty. They’re the projects that I’m most proud of.
I grew up in Australia and lived in Europe for eight years before immigrating to the States in 2021. Coming from a country that successfully enacted gun reform in 1996, I have strong feelings about it. The last thing I intended to do when I moved here was to speak publicly on the issue of gun reform in the US but when the tragedy in Ulvade happened, I couldn’t stay silent. I wanted to create a piece of art that bypassed the debating and heated anger, and simply hold space for grief – to honor the families, particularly the mothers and fathers who had lost children to gun violence. I was honored to co-write a song with fellow musician and filmmaker, Dylan Kussman. We were united in empathy and wanted to create some sort of offering and call to action.
I produced the recording and wrote and directed the music video for “What Are We Fighting For (If It Ain’t Love)?”. It was released on my independent label Blue Wolf Records and distributed worldwide by MGM Distribution, a deal I’d set up during my first album release in 2018. The video focuses on a mother and father moving through the five stages of grief. At first, they’re turned away from each other, working out where to place their blame and anger. Eventually, they reach acceptance and find their way back to each other.
Our votes carry weight. They have the power to enact real change. Voting is a right I’ve never taken for granted. Every time I’ve voted in Australia, I’ve thought about the women who were arrested and thrown in jail fighting for that right. As an immigrant, I don’t have the right to vote in America, but I do have a voice and a platform and I care deeply about this issue. As a social justice piece, I hoped that it would inspire people to get up and vote for gun sense candidates in the midterms and as a creative, I hoped that it might reach some of the parents of the children who’d been lost to gun violence and that they might feel seen and heard. Creating work that connects with people in a way that both honors their truth and offers hope is the reason why I make art.
(Link to this project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I started taking songwriting seriously when I was in film school. My film school was in a university and I was doing a double major in film directing and creative writing, with a focus on poetry. I’d trained in classical and baroque flute since the age of ten, sung in choirs, studied music theory and composition, trained at the Conservatorium of Music and begun a Bachelor of Music, so, it was inevitable that studying and writing poetry would lead to lyric writing and singing. I originally thought I wanted to write music for film but I’d discovered a passion for directing and visual storytelling. I very much love the relationship between cinematography and music, and the multi-layered optical and auditory experience of cinema. I have been fortunate to contribute to soundtracks on film, TV and game projects, working with music supervisors and composers as a vocalist and a songwriter, and have recorded on thirteen albums in Australia and Europe as a songwriter, producer, vocalist and flautist, all of which I hope to do a lot more of.
As a writer, director, my work is focused on examining resilience and the inner journey to rediscovering agency, offering perspectives that have been largely ignored by Hollywood archetypes. It embraces feminine modes of storytelling, and the divine feminine that exists within women and within men. And it aims to honor the spaciousness, truth and beauty of directors like Terence Malick, Walter Salles, Jane Campion, Sally Potter, Warwick Thornton, Peter Weir, Scott Hicks, Céline Sciamma and Claire McCarthy.
I’m particularly interested in telling women’s stories. There is so much power in a woman’s voice. There will always be people who want to prevent her from having a platform because they fear exposure and change. Any man in any culture telling a woman she cannot do anything, whether it’s read, or ride a bicycle, or play a musical instrument, or stand up on stage and tell the truth, needs to be educated on the benefits of equality for everyone. Male entitlement is very dangerous for women. It starts with what a woman is allowed to do, or say, or wear, and ends with the crushing fact that five women are killed every hour, mostly by a partner or former partner. Men cannot be allowed to own us. Not our bodies, not our voices. There has been a seismic shift in recent years when it comes to awareness around equality for women’s voices – on stage, on screen, in Iran, in America, in music studios, on studio lots, on music industry panels, from mics to megaphones. Women are once again making a point of standing together rather than competing with one another, realizing we are stronger together than alone. It’s an exciting time to be a woman, a writer, a creator, operating within this shift in consciousness.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
My writing is rather raw and honest, not afraid to go to dark places, to touch the heart of an experience, to break the skin. I realized when I started screenwriting that trauma recovery had been a recurring theme throughout my work, across all media. I had experienced trauma growing up and I had been fortunate to discover artists who weren’t afraid to write about it, to talk about it, to perform work that demonstrated catharsis and healing through art. I had been so inspired by their strength. It became a roadmap for me as an artist. So, when I began writing and performing, to have people crying cathartic tears at my shows and coming up to me, telling me they felt inspired by my strength – that if I had survived, it meant that they could too – meant everything, because I was now doing for them what those artists had done for me growing up. And isn’t that the point of art? To be brave, to be raw, to connect, to inspire, to heal.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
We all need art. It’s the fourth basic element of survival: water, food, shelter, stories. Stories have been passed down since mankind was able to drawn a line in the sand and form a picture, then through dance, theatre, words, songs, books and films. Stories are how we learn, how we connect to the essential parts of ourselves. They help us process our emotions and find the courage to take our next steps. Every single one of us accesses music as an emotional raft when we are falling in love, going through a break up, happy and celebrating, or struggling. When we’ve had a hard day at work, the first thing we do on the journey home is reach for the dial on the radio and crank up the volume, to let off steam. Yet, most musicians are struggling to keep the wolf from the door, battling anxiety and depression in a society that does not honor their worth. Suicide, and drug and alcohol abuse are rife among artists. It’s a very hard life. Yet, we continue to create because stories have found their way into our bloodstream and intoxicated us with their beauty, their magic, their wonderful ability to renew and heal. For every artist, there are a thousand parasites in suits wanting to make money off our backs and the system has been designed in such a way that it has become a symbiotic relationship. We cannot survive without each other. Unless, unless, unless – the consumer makes a conscious choice to support the independent artist, the indy filmmaker, self-published author, grass-roots artisan. Go to the folk festivals, buy the CD and the band tea-towel, frame the original artwork, seed fund the movie, go to the premiere, support your local arthouse cinema, find ways to keep us little creative folk alive and thriving, and, I promise, you and future generations will continue to be rewarded.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.aminah.com.au
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aminahhughes/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aminahhughesofficial
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aminahhughesherself/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/AminahHughes
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/aminahhughes
- Other: https://writers.coverfly.com/profile/aminahhughes
www.imdb.me/AminahHughes
Image Credits
– b&w main photo – still from “I Need to Learn” music video
– color on set photos – BTS from “Naf Naf music video shoot
– Photographer: Cori Kim – (b&w on set photos – BTS of music video What Are We Fighting For (If IT Ain’t Love) with Dylan Kussman)
– Photographer: Matthias Fichtner – (two color images on stage, taken at the Tonder Festival in Denmark)