B.C.'s Desirée Dawson, Alexander Farah win SXSW award for best music video
CBC
It was an unexpected win for B.C. singer-songwriter Desirée Dawson this week when she was awarded best music video at this year's South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas.
"I was just stunned," she told The Early Edition host Stephen Quinn on Wednesday morning.
"I didn't even know the video was in a competition. I didn't even know we were trying to win anything."
Filmmaker Alexander Farah echoed Dawson's sentiments — he said the recognition doesn't feel "real."
"I'm so proud of being able to uplift our amazing musician, cast, and crew on this project — to collectively share these wins like a little family feels incredibly special," he said.
The video for Dawson's Meet You At the Light, directed by Farah, depicts the relationship between a young woman and her father, played by real-life father-daughter duo Ishaval Gill and Kamaldevinder Gill, as the family moves through their grief following his loss.
"Without a single detail wasted, we were all moved to tears by this powerful story from a first-time music video director," the SXSW jury said.
Dawson brought the idea for the video to Farah as a way to explore grief and the joyous moments that can be felt reflecting on love and life.
Farah, too, was inspired by Dawson's story and lyrics, which mirrored his experience of watching a close friend's father's health deteriorate.
"I felt invested in their relationship and found such rich emotional territory in their bond, even from a distance," Farah said.
"As we get older and our parents age, I feel myself hypersensitive to the complexities of our relationships to them and really feel at home while exploring that."
"I keep thinking of Ishaval and her father Kamaldevinder who put themselves on display in this piece, sometimes I feel that their vulnerabilities are enough to fuel the rest of my filmmaking career," Farah added.
She wrote the song after her grandfather passed away in 2020 and was unable to travel to South Carolina for the funeral.
"I watched these videos of him and I had this beautiful video of him with this light shining behind him," she said.
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