Anika Hussen & Nia Raasikh on “Girl Dinner”, Marvel, Hulu, Warner Bros., Amazon MGM Studios, Filmmaking & Modern Relationships | Nick Egan Times

Anika Hussen and Nia Raasikh join Nick Egan Times to discuss their dark comedy short film Girl Dinner, a bold and honest exploration of modern relationships, friendship, identity, and the complexities of navigating life as young women.

Drawing on their diverse backgrounds in filmmaking, storytelling, and entertainment, Anika and Nia have combined their creative talents to write and direct a film that blends humor, chaos, and emotional authenticity. Anika brings experience from projects and collaborations connected to Marvel, Hulu, and Dolby, while Nia’s background in entertainment marketing includes work with major studios such as Warner Bros. and Amazon MGM.

In this episode, they share the inspiration behind Girl Dinner, the creative process of co-writing and co-directing a film, the challenges of independent filmmaking, and the importance of telling stories that feel genuine and relatable. They also discuss character development, visual storytelling, collaboration, and what it takes to bring a passion project from concept to screen.

The conversation explores filmmaking, directing, screenwriting, independent film, dark comedy, storytelling, creativity, women in film, and the future of emerging voices in the entertainment industry.

A fascinating discussion with two rising filmmakers whose work is helping shape the next generation of independent cinema.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Hi everyone, thanks for this episode of Nikki Egan Times. This episode we have two incredible filmmakers behind the upcoming Amazing Dark Comedy short film, Gildiner, Anika Hassan and Nia Russi. Anika is a New York-based storyteller with roots at Marvel, Hulu, and Dolby. Anika brings a sharp, imaginative eye to immersive filmmaking. Nia is a California native with a background in entertainment marketing for studios like Warner Brothers and Amazon MGM. Infuses her work with raw character-driven emotions. Together they have both co-written and co-directed the amazing short film Gildina, a bold, chaotic, and deeply honest look at the complexities of female friendship. Welcome to the both talented Anika and Eva and thanks for coming on the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

Thank you so much. Thanks for having us.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

You're very welcome. Alright, let's jump straight into it. Take us back. Tell us about both your individual uh backgrounds, your lives, um, your families, and everything relating to that.

SPEAKER_02 1:14

I can go ahead, but I grew up in New York, in Queens specifically, so just with my family of five siblings, very much all the grounds up, uh just an immigrant family and growing up in like a very cultural space. And then I had never essentially knew filmmaking could be a career because I feel like a lot of like immigrant parents they don't necessarily think that is like a career that has money and all that. So there was something where I kind of had to fight for and also realized that is something I wanted to go into. So that led me to my NYU days. So I went to New York University, studied the intersection of technology and uh filmmaking. So essentially thinking about the future of entertainment, how do you tell stories in different ways in more innovative ways? And that led me to my place, my job first at Hulu with the marketing strategy team, being immersive in that aspect, but also working with Dolby Vision. So they work with color and really much um really thinking about how to make movies as close to human eye or experience as possible. And that led me to Marvel today. I work on the trailer finishing team. We all the all the trailers you see um are produced by my team and specifically for color and sound. So throughout the whole all the titles, and that's really fun. I meet really crazy people in the industry. But now I think, and I think Nia can talk to this as well, even with all the work we do corporately for entertainment, there is this feeling of wanting to make your own stories and not needing to essentially follow this whole bureaucracy of the studio and how Hollywood sometimes can be a little bit traditional, sometimes can be very much this is how things have been, we're gonna keep doing this way. And I've always were was interested in the innovation of storytelling. So um meeting Nia allowed me to also understand that oh, I can make my own stories I've always wanted to make um on my own from ground up. It just takes a lot more grit and a lot more, you can't just follow people's rules, it's more of like starting from the ground up. But that's where I'm now. Cool.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Nice. And for me, I grew up primarily in California my entire life. We we moved around a little bit, like back to Arizona, but um primarily my entire life. I kind of grew up in Southern Calm Southern California in Orange County. And I think for me as a kid, I was always telling stories or like writing mini like dots of different characters on our family computer. That's something that's always kind of followed me. But when I went to college, I I originally went to college for fashion. And so when I came back um after being there for like a year, I came back um back to my to my family home, and uh I just went to like a local school, um, Kelsey Fullerton, and I studied business, but I had a minor in entertainment, and I think for me, I was able to see, okay, I could potentially make some sort of career out of this. And um after I graduated, I uh started working at an agency where I was um helping run the Xbox account. So I got into gaming first. Um and so I was doing gaming at some point, you know, after I was there for a while, I left you know entertainment and then I came back. Um and I, you know, now work at um a different entertainment agency where I, you know, have the privilege of uh getting to produce uh the most craziest campaigns for like Sinners and Barbie Oppenheimer. Like I've been able to touch so much. And to Anika's point, I think being able to touch the biggest you know, films and TV shows, I I think it really uh prompted this like inspiration of wanting to create something that was of my own and wanting to tell stories that really you know reflected aspects of my own life, and so that you know, through meeting Anika, we were able to kind of start this collaboration and partnership.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Incredible. And how did you actually both meet?

SPEAKER_02 5:38

That's one story that everybody asks us. We met at this tea shop in downtown LA. Um, they do a lot of like night events. Um, it's called Shiloh. Tia Shiloh or Shiloh? But T at Shiloh, and it was so random. I feel like I always say this, but Nia's one of the only people I've met like randomly outside of school, outside of everything that I still have contact with and actually have a working relationship, which never you meet people every day, and you're like, hey, we'll talk, and it never goes anywhere. But Nia's like one of the only people I feel like I might randomly and still talk and still work together.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

Like yeah, and it was uh it was just so like serendipitous, like of us meeting and like to Anika's point in LA especially, you meet so many people who are like, Oh yeah, we can collaborate or we can work on something together, and you never hear from them again. Um, but there was something kind of special about you know us meeting and us, you know, kind of bonding over the certain type of topics we wanted to, you know, address in our art. And yeah, no, it was like a really crazy random experience, but we're both very, very glad that we met that day.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

Yeah, amazing. And how would you both describe your working and I guess your friendship as well?

SPEAKER_02 6:53

I would say I feel like we are we have a lot of differences on the external front of like things that we like and stuff, but I feel like the internal, I think we always talk about this too. After we met, we had dinner at this Chinese place, which is interesting because Girl Dinner also has a lot of uh like Chinese takeout involved in the story. But we went to and then we kind of spilled our whole life story at each other. So I feel like we always felt safe with each other initially. I think it's like an evolving relationship. I um more so she's has I we have similarities in our backgrounds of like understanding um like growing up in big cities and also just being a woman of color as well. And I think that is just continuously evolving. I feel like even working our first um short for friend was a lot more simpler, and we were able to do that all on our own, have so many hats, but now working with bigger teams, seeing how our dynamic changes when working with so many other people, um, and making sure that we are able to get our vision across together.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

But yeah, and I think also in terms of like our relationship and and how that you know transferred over to our working relationship at the start, it really primarily was like we want to work on something, like our kind of friendship started in the space of like entertainment and building, like uh you know, building ashore. So I think like that having that as your you know North Star, and obviously through the years that we we've known each other, we've like grown our friendship as well. But because that is something that we're so connected and like strong on, I feel like that's helped us, you know, be able to navigate when we're working with different teams and um different projects. But yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:51

Yeah, I feel like it's kind of unique too, is like some people some friends can't work together, and some friends some work or some co-workers can't be friends. So it's interesting that both align or work together.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

Sure. Thanks for sharing this great insights. All right, let's talk about um your amazing short film, Gil Dina. Talk to me about that, how the experience was, and um, I guess the inspiration behind it too.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

Yeah, um, I can kind of go through the like how it came to be, and and you can kind of walk through like what it's all about. But we originally, you know, we love to be in LA, go to different events and and things like this, and things like that. And we were already kind of finishing our first short, we were thinking about different ideas we could work on until we uh actually went to an event in LA called um I think it's like the short film Great Short Filmmakers Club. Um, and so we met tons of people there, and we met a writer named Javier, and Javier was looking for directors to kind of work with. We uh came off of our first um tour, and so we wanted to, you know, see how we could collaborate with another writer, and so really quickly, like the three of us just started having like conversations and like like different like themes and ideas we could pull out, you know, and so that kind of started this like whole um you know, thing of girl dinner and um you know be able to cultivate a script together, and um, and that's how you know that process started. But um, Anika, I love when we talk about what it's about because it's kind of crazy.

SPEAKER_02 10:30

I think also like just the characters, there's three characters, so and and also three writers, and I think we were just walking, just sitting around cafe table, just throwing ideas around who these characters could be, and we morphed into Joe, Ronnie, and Carla, who are best friends, the childhood best friends, that essentially have been estranged for a bit for a specific um incident that happened with Joe. And then Joe calls up one night, and now they have to go bury a body for her. And I think it's the extreme circumstance putting these girls in that type of story, but also being able to have them hash out their friendship and at the foreground, their friendship is being um transformed, but also they're burying a body. So putting the putting like a specific theme like female friendship in an extreme scenario is a it like makes us more so amplify that relationship and see what where those friends can take them.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

But yeah, yeah, I think we all we always like love exploring, you know, the chaos and how extreme a situation can be using like everyday people that you know you you know in your own life and how how that would play out.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Awesome. And what was the best part of creating a biphoe?

SPEAKER_01 11:52

That's a great question. I feel like for me, and we're shooting in and we're shooting in early December, so we haven't shot it yet, but for me, I think it's been really rewarding seeing um how many people have kind of come together to help uh get this off the ground. Um, in our you know, first week of uh uh fundraising for this short, we had raised over $10,000. Um, and we have a pretty robust team of producers, and you know, obviously we have our writers, but we're working with like DPs and just seeing our community come and support us and support us telling um this story that is really near and dear to our hearts is something that is just so rewarding and and we're so pumped to shoot later in December.

SPEAKER_02 12:42

Yeah, and going off of Nia, I think the rewarding part for me is also being able to communicate our vision and then seeing people understand it. Because I feel like as directors, you get scared a little bit if every single department, every single person on this scene will understand the vision, be able to get it across. But so far, communicating our story, I think all of our team understands it from different angles. I also really love the transformation of us understanding our own characters. I think initially people had always asked us, like, who do you relate to most? And we ended up always saying Ronnie and Carla, who are the side characters. So people like, why don't you understand like relate to your main character? And I think while we were working with the characters, we realized how much like all of them have an ask an aspect of who you would be. And that is something really rewarding to me, too. That really being able to understand my own characters, even though I created them as well. But that whole transformation.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

It's a good question. Um you know, I think one of the most uh challenging things, and I'm I'm I'm kind of you know, a two-part maybe, because when I think about like us as independent filmmakers, um, as opposed to like my corporate uh career, but um I think one of the most challenging things is um you kind of which comes with directing, but you really do have to be kind of that leading ship. There are a lot of different people, there's a lot of different people involved, you know, money that people are putting down, and you kind of as you know, directors have to be, you know, at the top of that ship and making sure that everything is going as planned, and there's at times there could be you know loose-ins or like things we need to figure out, and you know, that aspect is really challenging, but I think also being able to overcome that and like see how we can get over different hurdles or like work with different people to like help us carve out, you know, our our plan. I feel like that is like a dual kind of challenging but also fun um kind of component of being independent filmmakers and being able to take something from zero to you know a hundred. And yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

And I agree with Nia too, and to add to what Nia said, it's also directors being at the head of the ship. I feel like, especially with so many heads in the creative space, in the creative space, also the producing space, and along with like all of our team, it's really important to find certain like middle grounds and compromises, but also being able to get that clear vision across. That again, compared to our first short where we were doing so much and having all these, like taking all the hats and being able to control all those decisions. I feel like clear communication and also being able to let go and allow like different teams to be able to lead their part and understand that they understand our vision as well.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Right. And did you both have mentors?

SPEAKER_02 15:57

Yeah, um, I've had a couple of mentors around throughout my life. I think, um, especially at NYU, my professors have been mentors. Um, I've had my film professors, I've um one particularly Rachel Raymus, who's also directing a couple different like episodes across the CW and all that. She taught me race uh representation television, and her her advice has always been very helpful. Even um after N NYU, I think the like reaching out to particular people in the industry that I work with. Um, for instance, uh yeah, for instance, like my one of my friends from the who I work with, who's a DP, being able to understand like her her journey of um independent work while she's also working corporate allowed or gives me more she gives me more advice on how to balance that as well. So throughout my life I've had different mentors and I still do.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

Yeah. Yeah, I think for me, like I didn't really come into this space in a traditional way. Like I didn't really go to school for it and things like that. So I didn't really have like some, you know, uh a mentor who was kind of at the top, you know, helping really carve out a plan for myself. I think honestly, it's been like my peers and the people that you know I've met in LA who are also trying to do the same thing. I think being able to um everyone's talked about like networking across rather than always trying to network up. And I feel like in terms of mentorship, being able to like talk to my friends who are also doing shorts, who are also writing, who are, you know, whether they're selling, you know, pilots or things like that, that has been tremendous in terms of my learning and and being able to help craft the stories that I want to craft.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

Yeah, for sure. You get great experience too. You know, you can bounce ideas off of each other, and you know, you can really get the information that can help you. Um, what's both the best compliments you've received each?

SPEAKER_01 18:06

Wow. I'm like, I should think about that, huh?

SPEAKER_02 18:12

Hmm. I think especially for with starting here. No, no, no. Um recently, I feel like for Girl Dinner, we have had a lot of people enjoyed the script and really excited to see the script, especially if they're putting, you know, support and money down. That is like a compliment in itself. But um, I think for specifically working with our actors, I think our recent director chat, um, they are very appreciative on how communicative we are and how much we try to foster a relationship instead of just, you know, straight ongoing to lines and really just build a friendship with them as well, as the story is about friendship. But I think we get compliments on um being able to foster a relationship even outside of the work environment and being very much always open and always open to um them reaching out and having that not such a closed-off like director. This is a director you can't talk to us, um like uh feeling, but more so just this openness that I think everybody appreciates.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Yeah, I feel like I'm also going to slightly steal your answer. Um I I also feel like you know, the one of the best compliments is seeing because we've like sent our script off to like friends, family, people in the industry, people who have no like attachment to entertainment at at all, or like my even my parents who like have no attachment to the industry at all. And um just seeing the really positive and like overwhelming, like this is like so great. I would watch this, I like want to see this, I will put money in that like that is also I think such a great compliment, and and it really like pushes us forward to be like, okay, no, I think we're on the right, right track and we can like continue with what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

And what would you love Bifflack Your Legacies to be?

SPEAKER_02 20:08

That's a big question, but I think, and I think I've going back to like my upbringing and how much I feel like it's not very much known for like someone like me or with my immigrant family to go into this type of career. I would like to be known as someone that did create what she wanted to and that did tell the stories that she never saw growing up, or um, she didn't wait to see the stories go um at before making them. So want to be known as like someone that created the stories that other people like me, other girls like me want to see.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

Yeah, I think for me, I remember in like 2014, I want to say, I hopefully I'm not like on the on the year, but I remember Lupita Nuongo um accepting her uh uh Oscar. And she was in this like stunning blue, I think it was like a Prada gown. And I remember being so like emotional and overwhelmed with like pride. Um, because I I really hadn't seen anyone like me really get on that stage that was just so widely, you know, regarded and and be able to carve out her own path. And you know, obviously, since then we have people like you know Jordan Pill who who've gone on and you know, gotten Oscars and things like that. So I think for me, uh what I want my legacy to be is also someone who has like continued to open doors and tell stories that you know are inspiring, that move people, that uh create, you know, conversation and dialogue around. Um and you know, I kind of want to be that person that um Lupita was for me when I I uh saw her, you know, over a decade ago.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Marvelous. And what is a moment that's changed both your lives that you can pinpoint?

SPEAKER_01 22:06

I think for me, I was in uh I know I mentioned earlier I went to fashion school first. So I was at Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. And at that point in my life, I was so convinced I was going to become a fashion designer. And um to be able to go in that school and continue um my, you know, get my, you know, uh a degree from that school, I needed to get financial aid. And I did not get financial aid and had to come back home to California. And at the time, I thought it was the most like devastating thing I've ever experienced. I thought there was no way I was gonna recover. I thought there was no way I was going to be successful or even be on the right path. But when I look back on it, you know, in retrospect, I'm like, if I if that didn't happen to me, I wouldn't be where I am today and meet the people I've met, be able to work on the projects I've been able to uh work on. So uh that was like a huge kind of pivotal moment for me that I'm, you know, I'm I'm ultimately grateful that it that it happened.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

I would say it was like 2020, um, where I essentially had convinced my parents that I want to leave to LA and really against all their wishes, because I feel like again, immigrant parents, there was like this strict like feeling of like staying near your family and staying in the city that you are um you're from that I leaving and going to LA right before COVID. And then COVID slightly helped me to stay in LA, um, where I got kind of essentially stuck and kind of never left a little bit. But I and my producer always says this to me too. But she came with one carry on, and she was like, she was like, let's go, we're gonna stay here. She I always believed I was gonna go back after the semester, but um my producer always says, I always knew you're just gonna stay here. And somehow, somewhere, you were gonna stay here, and that four months turned into five years, and I've been working in the entertainment industry for this long. Um, just never thought I would some like my upbringing or anybody around me would be doing what I do. Um, so that would be where everything changed for me, that 2020 era. But perfect.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

You both should be incredibly proud, you know, and it takes courage to do what you both are doing, you know. So yeah, well done. Um what would you tell yourselves if you're 18 again? It can be personally or professionally, and you could change anything. What would you change?

SPEAKER_01 24:39

Ooh, that's a really good question. I think for me, I would tell myself that it is okay to try and not have things be perfect. I feel like when I look at my even early 20s, I was kind of paralyzed with, you know, the feeling of if I do something and it's not perfect or you know, it's not up to the standards that I'm imagining in my head is even worth doing it, it's it's a really vicious, I think, cycle to to be in because you just waste a lot of time. So I think, you know, one thing I would tell myself is like, no, it is okay to fail. It's okay to fail in front of people. Have people watch you fail because it only propels you forward, because you know, the the more things you get under the your belt, you'll be better. And um, you know, the next time, you know, you won't make those mistakes. So I think that's something I would I would tell myself to like, you know, like just output, produce, create, you know, really do as much as you can when the stakes are are lower, because when you get older, you know, the stakes are always a lot bigger.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Yeah.

unknown 25:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:56

And yeah, no, to go up uh off of what Nia said, I think I spoke about this a little bit earlier too, but don't wait for or don't wait to see it exist. I think it's I did that a lot where especially with like South Asian um representation in general in film and media, um, in America specifically, I I was like waiting for these type of stories to be told. And I feel like when you're waiting for that, you sometimes it'll never it won't ever come. So I think don't wait for something to exist. Just do it.

unknown 26:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

Cool. Anika, Neya, thank you for coming on the podcast. I do appreciate it. I thoroughly enjoyed interviewing you both. And yeah, we see nothing but the success with Girl Duna coming off.

SPEAKER_02 26:38

Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you for having us.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

You're welcome.