Maltese hip hop band to make appearance at US film ceremony

The 'music film' for No Bling Show's song 'Marija s-Sabiha' will be screened later this year at the Hollyshorts Film Festival, having been selected out of 1,500 applicants.

Produced by Take 2 with the help of the Malta Arts Fund, the 20-minute video is a period piece which tells the story of an orphan from Mosta - the titular Marija - who is forced into an orphanage where she is sexually abused.

Presented as a mixture of Maltese 'ghana' (folk song) and contemporary hip-hop, the video echoes the band's previous cult hit, Lucija u Samwel - also a narrative piece about troubled youths hailing from Mosta.

Speaking to MaltaToday, No Bling Show frontman Jon Mallia said that although it remains to be seen whether the video will actually make it to the competition - and not just be screened at the festival - "correspondence did say that we were really close to being selected for competition".

"However, we are still waiting for more specific information," Mallia said, while adding that reason they took a stab at the Festival in the first place was because they were satisfied with the end result.

"Though we never produced the movie with the intention of applying for festivals, Take 2 did such an incredible job out of it and the concept was so fresh that we thought why the hell not?"

Asked to speculate on why the video may have been chosen to appear in the Festival, Mallia said that the Maltese flavour of the video may have had something to do with it.

"The project allows one an insight into a world that is seldom accessible: i.e., Maltese Catholic institutions. The period it is set in is also very romantic."

Mallia also said that that the hybrid genre of the video itself may have made people sit up and take notice.

"The concept of narrating a 20-minute film through rap is something that I have personally ever seen. I might have just not come across it, but out of all the hip hop I've experienced, I've never seen anything of this sort."

In many ways, the video would not have been made possible without the internet. Save for support from the Malta Arts Fund, 'Marija s-Sabiha' was made on No Bling Show's own steam, with distribution and subsequent buzz made possible through online word-of-mouth.

"As a musician who has been bitten on a few occasions by managers and producers and people not generally having the band's best interest to heart, I fully advocate bands taking stock of their own projects and managing themselves," Mallia said.