Meet the innovative minds behind the film "Bompton Had A Dream"
The indie film dropped on their very own streaming service
When creativity and commerce exist in the same space, artists are often faced with decisions about changing the integrity of their art for a check. As the late John Singleton expressed, the film industry has increasingly fell victim to the kind of micromanagers who've turned the art-form into a cash grab. Ali-Han Ibragimov and Rashan Allen, two filmmakers with similar ideals, have linked up and created a streaming service in response. With necessity being the mother of invention, MOORvision was born.
1. Let’s start with how you guys met. How did the two of you connect and what were some of the shared visions that brought you together?
Ali: We came out to LA around the same time, at 19, and we met about a week into our time being here. We met in the cafeteria of our film school, and just started talking about what we do, Rah said he’s a screenwriter, and I always wanted to connect with one, so we exchanged numbers and agreed to link up the next day. Rah: When we met, I remember he told me how he walked into one of his first business meetings at 15, with crutches and a cast on his leg after a surgery, trynna pitch the video game project he was working on at the time. He told me he had a record label with African artists… He had all these concepts he wanted to get off, but I could see, he understood the difference between conceptualizing and executing. So I said to myself, “yo, this white boy is crazy.” From that day on, we were in my apartment every day, for months, working on projects together till sunrise.
"The reason behind us even wanting to go to this community and shoot our first film with them, is because, for starters, we wholeheartedly do not fuck with the “Hollywood approach.”
Ali: And before I moved to LA, I never met anyone who I felt like was working as hard as me, everyone always told me that I was the hardest working person they knew, I took pride in that. But when I met Rah, I felt like there was constant, healthy competition on who’s gonna put in more work hours, and Rah loved to say certain things to challenge me. When we first pulled an all-nighter, I saw that he was just as hungry as I am. Both: I think the most important thing in our relationship is that there’s no confusion on what we both stand for, because of that, we completely understand each other, to the point where we knew, putting our heads together could potentially be the best decision we both ever made.https://youtu.be/-dFr0jRVUAs
2. Please tell us about MOORvision. What’s the overall goal for the platform?
Both: The goal is to be able to provide everything for the up-and-coming or the independent filmmaker, that we both wish we could’ve had when we came out here. From the start, we were set on finding a way to retain ownership and creative control over our intellectual property, knowing that majority of black filmmakers, and filmmakers in general, don’t own even a minor percentage of their projects. From our observation, that’s usually a product of being caught in a cycle of doing work-for-hire, rather than creating their own content and telling their own stories. We never wanted our art to be robbed of our touch, and we know there’s a lot of others that feel the same way.
3. How has the platform been received thus far from the filmmaking community?
Ali: Some people have showed a lot of love! A lot of people seem to understand where we’re coming from with this. Many have complimented our vision and the features of the platform, but some have also said they’ll support but never did. I think the most interesting personal observation we’ve made from this, is that both early on and now, the “friends” aren’t the ones who are showing consistent support. It’s very nice to see people that you’ve never met support your dreams and send you encouraging messages. We really appreciate that.Rah: The response I received caught me off-guard, a lot of fellow black filmmakers, that I knew at the time or even built relationships with to an extent, who I thought would fully be in support of another black filmmaker who’s making a platform for us all to come together, would be, if not celebrated, but at least commended, or rightfully respected. That’s just what did not happen - people were trying to undermine what we’re doing, calling me, and literally telling me that someone wanted to “humble themselves down” to work with me, because now that I’ve done this I’m worthy of their time. It ultimately resulted in me understanding that, even though my partner and I don’t feel like we’re in competition with anybody but ourselves, that doesn’t mean there aren’t people out there that don’t believe they’re in competition with us. We just wanna spread love.
"We just wanted our project to be as authentic as possible, and we were willing to do whatever we had to do to make that happen, even if it meant taking such risks, and I think people from there respected that."
4. What are your views on the film industry in general right now?
Rah: There’s a multitude of opinions I personally have on the film industry today, but what I can say to sort of sum it up is that, it’s too much of a corporate structure. Diving into Film Business shouldn’t leave you feeling like a politician. Women shouldn’t be degraded, in any field for that matter, but through film in particular just by trying to pursue her passion for the art. Production Companies shouldn’t feel the need to wave statistical assessments in-front of a filmmakers face as to why they should change something in their concept, then force it on them if the creator doesn’t comply. I just feel like things are revolutionizing, especially digitally and in media. We’re in the Information age so with any act of resistance against the powers at be, we’d have strength in numbers... Or clicks.Ali: I have views, but I’m just focused on MOORvision. That’s all that matters to me, because I know how Rah & I wanna conduct business, and some of the customs that are accepted in the game that we don’t agree with, simply just won’t run within our company. We can’t control another company’s culture, but we can most definitely shape ours.https://youtu.be/42XpB8mKMvk
5. Loved what we seen from your film “Bompton Had a Dream”. Walk us through what that process was like? What’s the film about?
Ali: Thank you! From the start, we set a goal of having every single location in Compton, and the first key location that we locked in was Centennial High School, the school that Kendrick Lamar has graduated from, which is also a couple blocks away from Piru St. We met with Centennial’s principal, Dr. Harris, and she gave us a blessing to shoot in the school, and school’s security guard, Twinn, connected us with Wacko, a community leader. After we had a conversation with him and explained to him our vision for this film, Wacko let us shoot on Piru St, and gave us a ride around that whole side of Compton to pick locations for all of our scenes. Rah: Prior to that, we were counting on certain connections we had with people from Compton, but they were all moving on their own time so it resulted in us rehearsing on the wrong side of the tracks, and locking locations in territories where we were definitely not welcome. Even had people hop out of cars and stop us in the middle of rehearsal, to press us about where we’re from and what we’re doing. Nothing ever got physical, but it did get to the point where we started questioning how safe our cast and crew would be shooting this project with us. So meeting Wacko definitely turned the whole process around.https://youtu.be/8wxhNpgD6e0Ali: I remember one day, closer to the day we wrapped the production, I was having a conversation with Wacko, while Rah was mid-directing a scene, and I just thanked him, like - “We appreciate how easy you made it for us to be welcome here, because we understand how easy it could have been for us to not be.” And his response was something like “yeah, y’all mothafuckas was crazy enough coming here, talking about a movie called ‘Bompton’ and shooting on Piru St., and having the balls to back it up.” We just wanted our project to be as authentic as possible, and we were willing to do whatever we had to do to make that happen, even if it meant taking such risks, and I think people from there respected that.Rah: The reason behind us even wanting to go to this community and shoot our first film with them, is because, for starters, we wholeheartedly do not fuck with the “Hollywood approach.” Even I, being from New York, feel disrespected when I see projects like “On My Block” and “All American” that don’t all the way represent the communities they’re trying to portray with flying colors. I seen a drone shot in season one of “On My Block” that rose to an areal view on the exterior of a house, and I saw a hotel in the distance that’s down the street from my apartment in Burbank. When they’re supposed to be portraying South Central... We knew that if we wasn’t gonna take this budget and go all the way to NY, we might as well do a project in LA, in an area that we were most familiar with and the culture here was built from the ground up. From the time I met Ali, I quickly recognized one of the people that had the biggest impact on him is Dr. Dre, a Compton native. For me, the only LA artists I was listening to at the time were Kendrick Lamar, WestSide Boogie, and YG, who all hailed from the section we ended up shooting our movie in.
"I think the most important thing in our relationship is that there’s no confusion on what we both stand for, because of that, we completely understand each other, to the point where we knew, putting our heads together could potentially be the best decision we both ever made."
Ali: As far as the production process, I made a mistake of not fully vetting out our crew, so for the first half of the production we ended up working mostly with people we felt like didn’t fully understand the world of the project. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they weren’t good at what they do. It’s just that maybe this project didn’t necessarily fit their niche. One shoot day that tested our character more than most, was sometime into the 3rd production week, our grip truck was taken away from us at like 10-11pm after a long day of shooting because the rental company made a mistake with the insurance. We ended up having to sleep in the grocery store parking lot with all of our equipment, craftees and props laid out around us, while still having to be on set in another 5 hours with no rental truck storages open in site. Don’t even ask us how we made it through this cause it’ll pop a couple blood vessels in my producer brain. Rah: Answering these questions now, forcing us to reminisce, it’s making me realize that the story behind the film carries just as much weight as the story in the film. But the film’s subject matter is based on an NAACP ACT-SO competition play I wrote at 16, in which I ended up going to the nationals for and won a gold medal. Which is what really even sparked a thought that I could be a writer, although at the time my mind was clouded by street shit, dropping out of school, doing certain things that could’ve potentially changed the entire course of my life. So the screenplay-adapted version stems from that, it’s about a top basketball player from Compton, who’s getting ready to announce his college decision, but wants to dedicate some time to workout in his local park. Meanwhile, his younger brother just got put on as a Westside Piru, gang affiliate. With all the distinct dynamics between the characters, it allowed me to touch on themes of afrocentrism, political science, the art of peer pressure, and LA gang culture (I just shouted out my favorite Kendrick song too for those of y’all who know the vibes). But most importantly, pay homage to the man who laid the foreground for LA Hood Movies, John Singleton. He humanized the hood in such a way that it could never be replicated by these major studios, so I wanted to honor that as much as possible. Especially since before his passing, he stated in an interview “The movie industry has been changed so much that a film like Boyz N’ The Hood can never be made now” so I just wanted to show him there’s still some hope.
Both: The movie is definitely not perfect, and we’re aware of that, but considering all the challenges we’ve faced and the odds that were consistently against us, we’re still very proud of what we have accomplished, and we did it while still staying true to ourselves. So no matter what any “critic” has to say about this film or us, that’s all that matters. We built bonds that are gonna last forever. The hood loves it, so we aren’t too worried about who doesn’t like it.
"The hood loves it, so we aren’t too worried about who doesn’t like it. "
6. What’s the hardest part about starting something like MOORvision from scratch? What’s the most rewarding?
Ali: The biggest challenge is building a team around us who we can entrust with our vision as much as we trust each other with it, and be able to count on those people to execute. Very often we would meet people who are passionate and ambitious talkers, but when it comes to getting things done, their energy doesn’t match their words. That’s why 3 years in, there’s still only two of us that represent MOORvision.Rah: Also, being young and constantly working on yourself as a creative, you can easily get swayed into doubting your direction with your ambitions, because we definitely felt like we’ve had to adapt at every stage we’ve experienced. But the most important thing is always asking your heart first and trusting it, knowing no matter where it’ll take you, at least you can say it was a 100% who you are. 
Ali: Another thing I’d add that’s important, is not growing too comfortable with where you are with each small victory or milestone you achieve, while still being grateful for it. It was crucial for us over these past few years to constantly challenge ourselves to think bigger and better. Rah: The most rewarding would be, just now getting our careers kicked off and already being able to impact lives everyday with our platform. When we officially launch all of our planned features for the world to utilize, there’s no doubt in our minds we’ll be a part of redefining entertainment industry standards.Ali: I agree, outside of the company itself, it’s also amazing to see how much our creative & business acumen has grown over the years while still never having to question each other on an integral level, and building a stronger brotherhood each day.
7. Where do you envision yourselves and your platform in 5-7 years?
Both: In 5-7 years if MOORvision itself isn’t more than just a platform, just know we haven’t fully done our job. We have some pretty ambitious goals, that we’d rather show someday than tell now.
8. Anything else you want to leave us with?
Both: Trust your vision, and protect it by any means! We also wanna say that these were some immaculate questions, cause lord knows we wanted to write a book for each answer, shout out to Gritty Vibes, we love what you’re doing with this outlet!Get like us and subscribe to MOORvision here: https://moorvision.com/subscribeFor more dope content, click here
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