Golden – A Film by Johnny Shahid – Golden. The inspiring journey of an immigrant striving for a life of abundance.Golden is about an immigrant’s journey from Bangladesh to America. The story goes through a contrast of two polar opposite worlds, Northern Bangladesh & The United States. One has a lifestyle of calmness, family and culture.

Presents

If you don’t take risks, you will never achieve your dreams

A film by JOHNNY SHAHID

The inspiring journey of an immigrant striving for a life of abundance

Selim endangers his family’s lives. To make amends, he must undertake a perilous journey to America, risking everything in pursuit of an extraordinary life.

Synopsis

SELIM AHMED is a risk-taker. He is about to have a very profitable harvest on his farm. With the money from this harvest, his plan is to first pay back the bank loan and also recover his ancestor’s land. But an unforeseen disaster destroys his farm just days before the harvest. Selim is devastated. The deadline is in a few months to pay the bank loan back to save his house. And fulfilling his childhood dream to get his ancestor’s land back now seems to be slipping away from his reach. Selim is hopeless and desperate. Selim by chance discovers an opportunity to go to America. The bell goes off in his head. He sees a golden opportunity, the American Dream. Selim’s wife MAYA thinks he is mad to go to a far away land to fulfill his dream. Despite the challenges ahead, he sees an opportunity to create a life for his family that will be anything but ordinary.

After acquiring some challenging arrangements, Selim arrives in New York. Right at his first bump on the road Salim meets PAOLO; who also has a story about his own journey to America. But once in New York, Selim finds a land unlike anything he could have imagined. Earning the money will not be as easy as he had thought. Many adversities come along the way, including one that almost costs him his life. Yet, Selim’s focus remains narrow and his resolve be unyielding as he overcomes monumental setbacks in his quest to protect his interests. In the following two years he becomes successful in the Halal food cart business. However, success will also come at a price. An old enemy exposes Selim to be in deep trouble with the authority; for something Selim had done in the past. Now Selim is on the run again, and this time to save his business, his American citizenship and avoid going to prison.

Mission Statement

Immigration is one of the most relevant issues in the world. Immigrants go to another country to pursue their dreams to have a secured future. These immigrants make huge sacrifices by leaving behind their loved ones, culture, food, friends and everything that they’ve known to be used to, so that their families can have a comfortable life. United States of America is a country that is built by immigrants.

Although in “Golden” we take a journey through the life of our main character SELIM, but we also portray experiences of other immigrants from different parts of the world coming to America and what they go through. It is an issue that not only millions of people can relate to – who have gone and are going through the similar experiences, but also people who are not immigrants themselves but know someone close to them who is one. There are many amazing stories about immigrants; some are funny, some are sad, some are shocking and some are inspiring. We are aiming to represent all those emotions in “Golden” through a unique perspective and story structure that has yet to be shown in its genre, and touch the heart of our audience in an entertaining way.

Personal Connection

Being a curious adaptive person from early childhood to a young teenager, Johnny Shahid has tasted the Bangladeshi culture strongly and he understands clearly the South-Asian perspective of life. Johnny also grew up in the US from a young teenager and has lived in the USA ever since, where he has adapted the American culture and
learned about the lifestyles and values of the American society. The experiences Johnny has faced as an immigrant himself are the true testaments of the vision he’d like to portray on the silver screen.

Director's Statement

There are many Bangladeshi- Americans living in the United States who have come to America with nothing and by working hard, staying dedicated and tenacious, and keeping perseverance they’ve gained tremendous successes in America. Sadly we’ve mostly seen in films where South-Asians are portrayed as either taxi drivers or clerks at a 7-Eleven/convenient stores. It is time to tell the story of the successful talents of Bangladeshi-Americans and other South Asians who are the true American Dreams, and do so in sophisticated, artistic and entertaining ways.

Johnny Shahid

Writer/Director/Producer

Johnny Shahid was born in Dhaka; the capital of Bangladesh. He moved to Los Angeles as a teenager. Johnny found interest in photography when he was in the 11th grade at Santa Monica High School. After graduating from high school, Johnny formed a band where he was a vocalist and played the lead guitar. In his second year at Santa Monica College, Johnny joined the Filmmakers Club where he directed his first short film on super 8mm. It was a black & white silent film with VO & sourced music. He took the challenge to tell a story visually with no dialogues in his film. The film was screened at Santa Monica College in an audience of a couple of hundred people “who greatly appreciated the context of the film.” He directed two more short films while he was at SMC.

After college, Johnny joined Hearst Entertainment where he worked directly under the Post Production supervisor in making 10 TV feature films. Johnny produced a short film called “StereoTypes” that was shot on 35mm film. The film won three awards – at the First Run Film Festival in New York City, Houston World Festival, and an audience award at the Directors Guild of America in Los Angeles. He has produced another short film called “Released”. Johnny has also directed a theatrical play called “Angel City” written by the prominent American Playwright Sam Shepard.

Johnny has worked as a commercial director for the domestic market in the USA and Bangladesh. For the USA market he directed a commercial for United Tax Group and a spec commercial for Dunkin Donuts. For the Bangladesh market Johnny directed TV commercials for Grameen Phone/Telenor, djuice/Telenor, Nescafe/Nestle and Beximco Pharmaceuticals. Besides “Golden”, Johnny has also written a Political Thriller genre screenplay titled “Thin Line”, as well as a Bangladeshi based and a period love- story screenplay titled “Mahalchari”.

Artist's Vision

Golden is about an immigrant’s journey from Bangladesh to America. The story goes through a contrast of two polar opposite worlds; Northern Bangladesh and The United States. One has a lifestyle of calmness, family and culture. And the other is a machine dog-eat-dog world. The audience will feel the turbulence within minutes into the film. The story starts with the scenic cinematic locations of Northern Bangladesh and ends up at the metropolitan world of New York City. The film will be in non-linear sequentially. Some hints will be given throughout the film for the audience to gather clues and put it altogether at the end as to discover the main character Selim’s journey. And this abrupt journey through the contrast of these two worlds will not only be visually intriguing but the turn of events will entertain the audience where they will root for Selim to prevail.