The Pan Eros Film Festival sat down with the director of Enchanted Drips, Zaidi, for a discussion on nature, filmmaking, and the importance of ritual. Excerpts of the interview can be seen in the Exhibition Filmmaker Spotlight from this year! Full interview is below.
Interviewed by Brodin Petrichor
Transcription by Keri Grassl-Ziegler
PEFF: I would love to know a little bit more about who you are, where you’re from, before we go into details with this film.
Zaidi: I am Midwest born and raised. Immediately after college, I went to Western Michigan, studying art. I went to Philadelphia and ended up doing seminary and at the Philadelphia Art Institute before they shut it down.
My main areas were industrial design and visual art (2D type, some 3D for sure). But at the Art Institute, it was industrial design, and then life took me everywhere. So after I was in Philly for about six years, I then moved out to Seattle and I was there for about 11 years.
Literally, I had a dream that I lived there. I didn’t know. It wasn’t even on my radar at any point in my life to live in Seattle. I had a dream that I lived there and I was like, “Sounds good. I’m going.” And it was probably the best choice I ever made. I got there at the age of 30 and took off. I was able to do my art. I had a couple of barbershops there just before COVID shut them down.
I don’t know how to say it, but basically Seattle let me fly. This creative whatever in here, there was just room for it.
PEFF: I also feel like Seattle let me fly. There was something so gorgeous about this whole region where everything is growing. There’s so many different colors.
Zaidi: I just want to say, I’m pretty sure it’s the nature, right? It is the amount of other life you get everywhere all the time.
Seattle is special. I tell people that all the time. It’s a special place. It doesn’t mean it’s perfect, but if you can figure out your groove, it has got you. It’s in my heart. It’s in my heart.
PEFF: Where are you now?
Zaidi: Well, currently that’s the thing, right? I’m a nomad. My last solid home was in Seattle and I’ve been all over for the last five years. Right now I’m in Johannesburg. I stay here with my partner who’s here six months out of the year, just because… America. And it’s a beautiful opportunity and a gift for us to be able to do it. So we do. And then I’m in DC when I’m not here. Huge contrast. We actually leave in less than a week, which is where I get to get back just in time for the festival.
PEFF: You talked about all the different life? The plant life, the nature, I could see all of this oozing into your film. How did you get the idea for it? I would love to hear the story.
Zaidi: So the story goes like this. I have never considered myself to be a kinkster. My partner and basically the two other people in the film are? So we actually filmed it here, and Minxy, who’s the model, was visiting. And it was very impromptu.
There’s a lot of plant life outside. And we tend to keep and collect flower petals and dry them out. It was really organic. I am constantly taking photos and videos of everything, mostly plant life. So it was one of the days of the visits and Dame was doing something with flowers and was like, “Oh, I would love to put this on a body.” And she brought it where we’re at. [The location] used to be for doing things like this. Since then it closed down and we actually took over the space when we got back this time. Whole nother story. But being in this space, it’s so beautiful that it didn’t need much.
It was around New Year’s. Minxy had this pink situation. Like the colors, I think influenced me in the ways that it did. I was shooting with my iPhone 12 Max Pro. It literally was for us, right? I love to make art and they love to make art and ritual in this way, via kink. So when I’m talking about the film, what is most important is the fact that it’s a very organic scene.
I feel privy to be able to take video and photos because it is a scene, right? And not only that, but what I wanna say, the key element for me is showing the softness and the beauty of Black and Brown bodies. And that when we are in kink spaces, it’s a particular softness that is ideal.
I know that the way Dame does her sessions, because she’s also a practitioner, it is always via ritual. So you’re gonna have some element of crystals and water and candles in the things like you see in the film. I think it was an opportunity to expose that particular softness to everyone else.
PEFF: Some of my favorite films that I’ve seen at different film festivals, were done on an iPhone because they were in the moment and they knew exactly what they wanted to frame. I get that from your film, you knew exactly how you wanted to picture the wax dripping down, the petals on the back, the stems on the back, everything just melding together. Even that zoom around shot that you have, rotating around the practitioner who’s just smelling in the smoke. It was just incredibly done, how you visualized it. I love that.
Zaidi: I really enjoy film. It’s hard to say filmmaking, right? Because if not for this interview, I wouldn’t say it. (Laughs) But in general, I take so much video of things, usually like trees and flowers, no kidding, or things that fly fast that I can catch in slow motion. So there’s already like a practice thing. And between the two of them, lots of film when we hang out. So it was a knowing already.
And there were some moments in there, I can still feel it, you know? Like when she squirms from the wax. And even in silence, right? Like these subtle movements and the care that’s taken. I’m honored to just be a witness. Honestly.
PEFF: I would like to get a little bit more of how you feel about videographer versus filmmaker. If you’ve never called yourself a filmmaker before today, how do you see that differentiation?
Zaidi: As an artist in general, I am a firm believer that creatives create, makers make, you know what I’m saying? And so with that particular mindset, I have humility when I say filmmaker. I don’t want to act like I’m in a room with people and we’ve all been doing the same work this whole time. I do believe that when you’ve put in the hours, then you have the work and you have the receipts. When I went to college in 1999, it was for photography, but I had been shooting since I was 12. I entered my first photo into a competition as a teenager and that was the only time I entered photography, but I’ve been shooting the whole time. And then also the other forms, but I have humility because like I said, we haven’t been doing the same work, but I also have confidence. Like a warm confidence because I know what I’ve been doing. And I know that this particular opportunity is to affirm me. And that feels really good because I’ve been doing so much other work that’s been face forward that in this nomadic period specifically, I’ve been wanting to do what I love to do.
It’s just a beautiful moment for me because it affirms something that nobody knew about. So it looks nice.
PEFF: You’re not a practicing kinkster yourself. Is there anything that you feel like you needed to learn about the wax play prior to filming it? Or is this something that you’ve seen Dame do for a while?
Zaidi: Yes. I was interested in the kink scene. That’s how I met these individuals. On the East Coast, Dame has a long history of burlesque. She goes by Madame Seduction in the dungeons, etc.
We met in 2022. And that was the beginning of me seeing more of what goes on in the dungeons. Because I was interested for myself, but then it was just like, I’m a researcher. I need to know if this is where I want to be. So I’ll go a few times and be like, eh, maybe not. I like more private play, if I’m going to play. But from what I understand as far as people who are in the kink scene, it is a desire there. And I can’t say I don’t have fun, but that desire, those particular desires have to be provoked. I don’t just naturally have them.
PEFF: We are compelled to make art. Do you feel with this piece, because you were seeing Dame as a practitioner, having these really intimate, beautiful, and ritualistic moments, do you feel you had to document this?
Zaidi: That’s exactly what’s happening. I say I’ve been a nomad for five years. So two years into that is when we met. For these last three years, my mind was blown. Not just about what I can see, but learning people’s thought process, learning what feels good to people, what doesn’t feel good to people. And I document everything anyway.
There would be these opportunities, I did feel like this needs to be captured. This is insane, you know? It started that way. And that’s how this film got made. And now that we’re here specifically in South Africa, there is a particular mission. And the irony is that I did missionary work in 2004, and it was in Nigeria. 20 years later, I’m back on the continent, completely different type of work, but still equally important to me to document these things, this work, how it happens, what it looks like, and also be able to express the softness, the care, the preparation, it’s important to me because it’s the setup. When you see her with the incense and you see her hanging the flowers, and all the light coming in, it lets you know this is not a scene you’re used to seeing.
There’s other places where she is doing work here. And when I say sessions, she does rope sessions with people and she’s a somatic practitioner. There’s all these different ways, and I document them mostly because a lot of these women are Black women who have not been touched this way, who don’t get to drop, who just have not been touched in these very soft ways. And in the same way, earlier today, I’m outside taking pictures of birds of paradise. It feels the same to me. I can’t miss this moment. If for no other reason than to give it to the person who just got tied up or just was like in this nest or whatever the case, because I think people should see their softness too.
PEFF: I really appreciate the work that you put forward so much.
Zaidi: Thank you so much.
PEFF: I would love to know future work that you’re doing? Is there anything that you’re excited about that you are currently capturing or wanting to capture?
Zaidi: Well, everything. I want to capture more story. And I don’t know specifically if I’m talking about just people, but I love to tell stories via pictures, via video. And I’ve been doing a lot more video than photo lately. Cause I can’t help it now.
So I’m not sure. I know the work that we did there, we’d be doing more of that cause we’re building a thing. Now we have that space that we did the movie in. So we took it over this year, very impromptu. And now we’re gonna work to keep it. So there’s gonna be projects for sure.
PEFF: Where can people find you?
Zaidi: On IG, beardedladyart. beardedladyart.com has a lot more about me and the things I do.