Quaran Ahmad, a Senior Architecture Major attending Howard University, recently hosted the second premier of The Burn Documentary. The premier took place at Tour De Force located in Northwest D.C. It featured many DMV creatives and Howard students in attendance. With Ahmad being the director of the documentary this film just adds to the long list of creative ventures that he takes part in.
Ahmad spoke on what went into making The Burn Documentary, and how it feels to be able to show creation in front of the people who mean the most to him
So you recently had your second premiere of your Season 2 of The Burn Documentary. Can you just talk about what it meant to have so many people there from Howard and different artists there?
It was really sick. A lot of the people who were there have been people I’ve been networking with in the past, like, year or so. Just to have them there, supporting and really seeing the vision, it was really cool. Having it sold out and being in a room full of people who really like different elements of it, there may have been some people who are there strictly for the art, or strictly for the vendors, or strictly for the actual documentary.
It’s just cool seeing people there. So, yeah, it was awesome.
What’s the inspiration behind Burn, for some people who really just don’t know what it is?
So, as some people may know, I’m from Chicago originally and I was raised by a single mother. We used to attend a church called Christ Universal Temple. At the beginning of every year, they would have a service called Burning Bowl. In those events, it would basically be this whole big ceremony/ritual thing.
During the first half, they would ask you to write down some fears that you don’t want to bring into your life for the upcoming year. They would take all those pieces of paper from all the different floors and then burn it in this big ceremony.
They’d then give you a second piece of paper. On that piece of paper you’d basically write yourself a letter to God or something like that. Basically saying what you hope to achieve in the next year. The church would actually take those and mail it back to your own address by July of that year, so you can read it and see exactly what you were thinking about and what you were aspiring to do all the way back then. So just doing that and practicing with it for five or so years, it really inspired me to make something that would be similar to that for Howard students, who are artists and stuff of that nature out here in the DMV.
What made you want to take on this commitment of making this documentary?
I just love doing things that I want to do and making cool art. I make time for things that mean a lot to me. Any little crevice of time that makes sense for me to commit to filming for the film or, staging and planning, I’m going to make that time. I literally had to leave early from my class just to get to the premier. Sometimes it l feeds into and takes away time from other things, but it’s definitely worth it at the end of the day. Just seeing the impact and what it amassed, and I always knew it would do that.
What do you feel like you really want to focus on, being that you have a little more free time now?
At this moment it kind of feels good to just not have anything to really work on right now. I have little projects and stuff that I’m working on. I don’t mind sharing them.
I’m working on a photo book right now for like early next year, obviously beginning stages of the final burn show next March. So, just reaching out to people and emailing and even setting up like shooting dates and stuff like that. So it’s just a little busy work. I never really can just sit down and just relax. There’s always something I’m doing, something I’m working on. It just gives me a rush just to work on something that would impact me in the future.
I think the closest new thing that’s going to come soon is probably my music. But I don’t know, though. That’s still a work in progress, because I’m really letting it marinate now. I’ve been experimenting a lot, and just, like, letting life really take me in new directions, you know? I love my music because it’s really the closest thing to my personal expression of how I see the world.
So, I’m just taking my time with that and stuff.
Article featured image courtesy of @3mmarah on Instagram.