Filmmaker Véra “V” Haddad’s short film Opener immediately evinces familiarity with the touring musician life. Queer guitarist Sam (Saara Untracht-Oakner) faces familiar headaches when she walks into her hometown’s small venue: a cold club manager, a dismissive sound tech (“Is that the loudest you’re going to get?” he asks her, interrupting her already truncated soundcheck) and a broken string that necessitates a protracted trip to a local music shop mostly populated by dudes. Only the eventual appearance of a supportive queer community, including a cameo from Jane Schoenbrun, puts her at ease. “All of my closest friends are musicians,” Haddad explains. “I lived off of Broadway and Flushing in Brooklyn and was in this central hub of a certain music scene—mostly queer, non-binary and femme-adjacent musicians and bands from the mid-2000s.”

Haddad hails from the Chicagoland area and was raised in a working-class background. After working in food service after high school, they were encouraged to apply to Cooper Union by a stranger smoking weed in Washington Square Park during their impromptu trip to New York. Upon graduating from Cooper’s fine arts program, they “fell into free film school” through their roommate and collaborator Adam Baron-Bloch, who serves as Haddad’s primary DP. “He just started bringing me onto sets, and I got connected into New York’s freelance film world. I never saw myself as a filmmaker necessarily and went to art school thinking I’ll be a painter. Adam invited me into this world that was very encouraging and welcoming.”

Since they work in both creative and commercial spaces—their first gig was in the art department on a Wendy’s commercial—Haddad has developed multiple skills through on-the-job experience. (“I’m a production designer. I’m a video editor. I produce. I direct. I have DP’d and PA’d. I’ve done everything except gaffing.”) Haddad’s multi-faceted talents stem from their years of practical experience combined with a capital-A Arts background, not just from Cooper but also UCLA’s New Genres program, where they studied under Barbara Kruger. “My biggest benefits from both Cooper and UCLA were this rigorous interest in how we think and opening up our sensibilities, but as a program, cinema isn’t really a part of it. I made some moving image work there, but I was really hungry to do narrative, which I’ve channeled mostly through my work as a music video director.”

Through their production company Slopehouse Productions, which they helm alongside Baron-Bloch, Haddad has primarily spent the past 10 years working on and directing music videos for a variety of indie artists, including Big Thief, Courtney Marie Andrews and Florist, that last fronted by Haddad’s partner Emily Sprague, whom they’ve also accompanied on tour. Suffice to say, Opener, their narrative debut and the first they shot with sound on set, comes from Haddad’s personal experience and how they “encountered a lot of discouragement as a non-male person” during their time in music.

But the short was specifically inspired by a humorous, destabilizing trip to the Guitar Center on 14th St. in Manhattan, an experience that Haddad channels into the film’s climax. “It was during Pride Month, and I popped in there trying to grab [a piece of gear] super quickly [for a shoot]. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a Guitar Center, but it’s this cacophonous, oversaturated sonic space, and it felt like a mirror to the world right now: everyone sonically expressing themselves very aggressively all at once. I was the only non-male person in the entire place, and it was just so funny.”

Haddad’s background as a queer Lebanese American influences all of their directorial work, but some early film influences also contributed to their humanist perspective. “I saw Waking Life in high school and was obsessed; I had seen some art films, but that existential observation thing was a huge pivot point for me, just to excite my interest in freakier film.” At Cooper, they watched Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Love Meetings, which helped them discover a playful way of collaborating with the public. The work of queer Lebanese poet Etel Adnan also looms large: “She has been an impactful figure and guide for me as I move through my nebulous path as a person, artist and filmmaker.”

Though Opener is still being considered by festivals, Haddad has already planned their next project: a road movie. “I got to see Wim Wenders’s Alice in the Cities, and this amazing musician Sibylle Baier—she has a small cameo and song in the movie—was at the screening and shared more about the filmmaking process. So, basically, my next project is what I’m calling a road movie à la Wim Wenders/Waking Life with a queer femme cast and perspective.”—Vikram Murthi/Image: Emily Sprague