#CrowdfundThis: “Birds And Other Things We Placed In Our Hearts”

Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Saeedah developed as a storyteller through immersed in the black arts scene. After gaining her BA in communications from St. John’s University, Saeedah spent some time at BET and Loki Films working in casting, development, and production management.

While Saeedah developing this film, she says something became painfully clear during her research, “I can probably count the number of fantasy films with characters of color on one hand. It’s true. Try it. Name five fantasy movies where most of the cast are people of color? It’s hard, and that’s because of the convention that minority characters should only play certain roles in certain type of films. You see what they did to Rue?”

Her work focuses on telling female and minority narratives in new, engaging and multi-layered ways. Birds is a honest love story. The story we all know of two people that are very much in love, yet have no way of finding complete happiness in each other.

In the story, Sadie is wholly in love with Alice. So much so, she doesn’t need anything else. Alice unfortunately doesn’t feel the same kind of fullness. When Sadie accidentally frees the lovebirds living in Alice’s chest, she is left utterly empty. Alice soon falls into a deep depression. Stricken by guilt, Sadie goes out in search of something that will replace the lovebirds and restore Alice.