Meet Maya Moravec Izzie Nadah | Co Founders, Co Directors, One & Other Productions
We had the good fortune of connecting with Maya Moravec Izzie Nadah and we’ve shared our conversation below.
Hi Maya Moravec, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I: We started One & Other in 2021 after a series of professional opportunities brought us together, including working with our mentor Ramfis Mythril and culminating in our producing of Elizabeth Acevedo’s Mirage. Maya and I realized our artistic and professional goals had significant overlap, and our mutual fascination with unique perspectives would be a driving force in the mission of O&O. As we worked, we learned the value of being able to navigate the business side of film, so with mentors both in and outside of the industry, we started O&O with a mission to elevate artists and stories of diverse backgrounds and prove the market viability of message driven movie-making.
M: When starting, Izzie and I discussed many shared life experiences and feelings that are to this day not explicitly explained or explored deeply in mainstream media. The ultimate goal of the company is to explore spaces that make up a multicultural identity. A multicultural identity is vastly unique from person to person, and its shocking how many deeply felt feelings and ideas are shared by people who occupy these “Middle Spaces”.
Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
I: We are a full service production company with a narrative focus. We are committed to producing multicultural stories and bringing those perspectives to mainstream media. We formed the company a little over two years ago and it’s been a tremendously exciting and fast-paced journey. We have each other to rely on and brainstorm, our partnership has been instrumental in how quickly we have been able to grow a slate of over a dozen films, with 15 projects having completed principal photography. We are so grateful for the peers, mentors, veterans, and trailblazers that we’ve gotten to meet and work with in the past few years. Our network is full of brilliant, inspiring folks from all walks of life and with vastly different experiences. Our ability to work with and learn with people authentically allows us to make stories that are interdisciplinary, artist-led, and representative of some of the most beautiful and complex human experiences.
Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I: Well, I think the most beautiful thing about New York is that it’s a different city for everyone who lives here. I love hosting people visiting New York. I have friends that come in to see the museums, for the music scene, for theater. Planning a good visit is all about knowing your audience, but there are a few staples. For theater, I think it’s very fun to take out of towners to Broadway, you also knock out Times Square in the same outing! If they want something a little further off the beaten path, highly recommend Sleep No More in Chelsea. If they like cocktail bars a few downtown favorites are: Lovers of Today, Sake Bar Satsko, Dante, and Sour Mouse. For a great view take visitors on the tram to Roosevelt island for rooftop drinks. I could go on for far too long about restaurants, so I’ll just shout a few that I think are underrated: Alta for Mediterranean tapas, Old Tbilisi Garden for Georgian food, ilili for Lebanese, Baar Baar for Indian brunches on weekends! Also, if your friend is down for a weird night out, you should check out The Box.
Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
M: We would love to shoutout Santosh Govindaraju! He is a dear friend and mentor of ours who we met in 2020. He was very generous with his knowledge and his approach to the industry was fascinating to me. I followed up with him over email and we discussed several themes that happened to appear in Elizabeth S Acevedo’s Mirage, which was the first film that O&O produced. He came onto the project as an executive producer and was incredibly supportive of us and the multicultural message we were building.
As we have grown in size and knowledge, he continues to be one of the people in our lives that will give us the most direct “real talk” about the industry. He has an amazing capacity for nourishing the strengths of those around him. He levels with us about both the practical and the personal aspects of the industry in a very helpful, humble way. Having such a generous spirit and one of the most holistically curious people in our corner is a huge blessing and has helped us navigate some trickier situations!
We recently were honored to accompany him for the Tribeca Film Festival world premiere of a hilarious film he produced, Maggie Moores. Go see it when you can– it totally subverted our expectations and was a highlight of our experience at the festival this year.
Website: https://oneandotherproductions.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oneandotherproductions/?hl=en
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/79354529/admin/feed/posts/
Image Credits
Quinn Dailey
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