Responding to recent allegations made by Ladan Osman
May 13, 2022
I want to take a moment to respond to some of the allegations made against me by my former partner of four years, Ladan Osman, in a thread she published the night of May 11. I will demonstrate that her allegations are false. First I will give context to and refute one of the main allegations she makes, that she is a co-director of “Sun of the Soil,” the film we recently released on Netflix. After that, I will address the other allegations.
“Sun of the Soil” first started as a photographic project with myself and Abdou Ouologuem in 2014. I was working in Bamako, Mali, at the time, as a photographer for Reuters News Agency (I lived and worked in Bamako from 2013-2015). A friend of mine, Igo Diarra, asked me to make work for a group show he was hosting at Medina Gallery. I suggested a project on Mansa Musa because I had heard of Mansa Musa prior to coming to Mali but never saw traces of his legacy in Bamako. Igo introduced me to Abdou Ouologuem, an artist who had worked in theater and costume design as well as painting and sculpture.
Abdou and I began doing public interventions with him playing the role of Mansa Musa. We both funded the project with our own money. Within one week, we made a series of photos in different areas of Bamako imagining Mansa Musa visiting modern-day Bamako. We were happy with the images and got good feedback from the Medina group show.
We decided to continue photographing whenever we could, and made several more photographs from 2014 to 2016. The photographs were popular and were reposted a lot on social media, especially on Tumblr and Instagram. We had an exhibition of the photographs in Brooklyn in July 2016, and later we got gallery representation for them through Galerie No. 8.
After the exhibition, Abdou and I wanted to take the collaboration one step further and make a film on Mansa Musa. We wanted to make a narrative film, but eventually settled on making a documentary as a sort of stepping stone to a potential narrative film. We were first-time filmmakers and our ideas were evolving as we went along. In late 2016, I made a trip to Mali to do research for a film on Mansa Musa, using my own money. I tried to get funding for the documentary from Open Society, but was unsuccessful.
In early 2017, I moved back to New York City, where I’m from. I still pursued funding for this film project from contacts from high school who had become film producers. I met Ladan through friends and in late May, 2017, we began dating. I invited her to join the film project as a writer, she liked the idea, and we began working on it together with Abdou.
I came up with a treatment for the documentary based on my work in Mali over a period of five years. I asked Ladan for her input as the writer, she gave it, and I incorporated her notes. In that treatment, we clearly state that I am the sole director of the film.
We eventually got an investment from a small production company and began filming. From the beginning, it was not easy to manage Ladan and Abdou, who never really got along. We rapidly ate through the budget, and I had to raise money urgently and spend some myself to cover our hotel and food costs. When we got back to New York, we began applying for grants using the footage we got. Throughout the whole grant application process, the roles were clear: I was the director, and she was the writer. This was never in dispute.
We didn’t get any grants, but I was able to raise some money privately from an investor in Mali who saw the potential of the story. Everyone was aware of this fact. We kept applying for grants, and at every stage, the roles were clear.
We finished the film in 2019 and were looking to get it distributed. After post-production was completed, it was again clear that I was the director:
I directed the camera work throughout the film. I found all the locations of the film. I suggested the filming locations and planned for our production trips to Dakar, Almería, Toronto, New York, Yanfolila and Bamako. I had lived in Mali for almost three years and used my experiences and contacts from those three years of work to help craft the story, do recces (especially in Bamako) and make the production happen in every sense, especially in its direction. I raised all the money for the film through my contacts.
All the interviewees were my ideas and my contacts. As the writer, Ladan helped write questions for these interviews. Abdou also asked his own questions. I interpreted scripts that Ladan as the writer wrote (which I also greatly contributed to). I asked Ladan for specific frames based on certain ideas.
I set the tone, made decisions on the visual storytelling, and lead on the casting and setting decisions for every single shot in the entire film. I made final decisions in all aspects of post-production, incorporating notes from Ladan and the two other producers, Abdoul Salam and Asher.
The film had a successful festival run, winning multiple prizes. At every festival, I was credited as director and Ladan as writer. Ladan never expressed any disagreement with the way that the credits were written. In fall 2020, I was able to get the film in front of Netflix via a sales agent through a friend of a friend. The sales agent sent it to a distributor, who then shopped it to Netflix directly.
Ladan said that she should be a signatory on the contract with the distributor, so she was. We went through five months of negotiations on the contract with the distributor, from October 2020 to the end of February 2021, and saw over a dozen drafts of the contract before we both signed it. She never once brought up the director’s credit. There was no duress to get her to sign the contract and she contributed many modifications to the contract over the five month period.
After Ladan and I signed the distribution contract in February 2021, we signed another agreement between us where we clearly defined each person’s role. This was prompted by the fact that other agreement for the film was between Abdou, myself, and the first producers, so Ladan and I didn’t have a contract between us. This contract was at Ladan’s urging and at my agreement. This was also not done under any duress.
In early August, 2021, Ladan and I broke up after more than four years of dating. We decided to continue working together and are currently co-directing another documentary project, which I will get to later.
In early December 2021, our distributor confirmed that Netflix would license the film for three years. The news was great and everyone rejoiced.
On January 19, 2022, Ladan and I had a phone call about the documentary we’re currently working on. After we wrapped up that work call, she asked if we can discuss other stuff. I said OK. The call quickly devolved into a heated argument where personal matters and professional matters were overlapping.
She asked if I thought I was the sole director of Sun of the Soil and I said yes (I didn’t see that in the audio clips in her thread). After more back and forth, in an emotional moment, I said that if she wanted to reduce my credits for the film again after we had already signed two contracts and we had already confirmed our Netflix release, then she should take everything—all rights on everything we ever did. It was an emotional response in a heated moment.
When I hung up the call, I was lucky enough to be with my good friend who told me I looked extremely distressed. After looking at our contracts, he advised me that there’s no way I can just give up years of my hard work for no valid reason. I agreed and decided not to give away all my rights for nothing.
Three days later, Ladan emailed me saying she recorded our previous conversation. I didn’t consent to that. She told me that I needed to change the Sun of the Soil credits as well as get rid of my copyrights on all the work we’ve done together, or she would try to get the Netflix release cancelled. I said “no,” and I stand by that.
I wrote to Ladan telling her that I do not consent to those revisions and explained once again that not only did we agree to the credits, but that in action and deed, I directed “Sun of the Soil.”
Ladan nevertheless went ahead and contacted the VP of the distribution company to tell them I “stole” her work and to try to get the Netflix release canceled. When I reminded the distribution company that she was a signatory to the distribution contract with them, they said they would go ahead with the release. Ladan still tried to get the Netflix release canceled by telling them that I stole her work. She implied she would state this publicly and include the distributor’s name as enabling this “theft” if they went forward with the release, so on the advice of close friends, I hired a lawyer to block her from doing so. She hired her own attorney, and once her attorney reviewed all the facts of the situation, we were finally able to get the film released on Netflix.
Addressing the other claims
As I mentioned earlier, throughout this whole time, we have continued to collaborate and co-direct another documentary on public health, where we are in regular contact. Since she has tried to paint me as a theft of her work, I told her that we can’t work together anymore. I proposed that either she or I take charge of the documentary we’re currently working on, and whoever leaves the project will walk away without losing too much income, since we are both freelancers. I proposed that she choose whether she or I leave the project. She turned down that proposal. I was OK with leaving the project if she had wanted that, but she didn’t want it.
With regards to her claims that I am “attempting to steal” $33k worth of camera equipment we bought together, that is incredibly ludicrous. I am the director of photography of a film we are co-directing, that is in production. I just came back from a two-week production trip where I used the camera and accompanying equipment. We have more footage to shoot in the coming weeks and months. She will direct some of this footage. How can I steal equipment that we’re using to shoot a film we’re both directing? Nonetheless, I told my lawyer my preferred terms for equipment sharing and I am still waiting to hear back from her or her lawyer.
Also with regards to her saying she has never gotten paid for “Sun of the Soil,” that is true. Neither have I and neither have the other producers, Abdoul Salam and Asher. Whatever small payment Abdou got at the time, he immediately put back into the film. Abdou even tore the roof off a house he was building in order for the space to have more natural light, so we can film there. He was never compensated for that. Besides my payment, I am still owed roughly $5,000 of the personal money I invested in it, and the other investors are owed a lot more. This is because we agreed at the beginning that we went into the project knowing it was not going to be lucrative, and that we would only get paid if and when when the film sold.
We sold the film to Netflix for roughly 1/4 of the full cost of the film, and that money is further whittled down through payments to the distributor, the music licensing, and more. We are expecting the first payment from Netflix now, from which payments to the team will commence (slowly, because they send the money quarterly over a period of three years). I actually emailed Ladan before she published her thread to try and open the shared LLC bank account to receive the money but she said she needs to speak to her lawyer before we do so. I am currently waiting for her approval to open the shared bank account so we can begin payments.
“Sun of the Soil” has always been a stepping stone to other, better paid work, and it has done that job remarkably well. We were able to win the contract for the documentary we’re currently working on, which right now is paying us both the most we’ve ever gotten paid from a film project, based largely on the success of “Sun of the Soil.”
We were also planning to work on a Mansa Musa TV series of which Ladan would be the lead writer and potentially direct multiple episodes. We had strong interest from a major production company and had a popular actor already committed to playing a major role and connecting us to his Hollywood contacts. The series would be great because of its storytelling potential, and we would be seriously evolving in our careers. For obvious reasons, we are no longer working on that.
With regards to “Sam, Underground,” we agreed on the shared director’s credit when the film was released. I did not sneak the credit as she says. We agreed on the credits and finished the final Premiere exports together. I hand wrote the credits and showed them to her for approval. Only after when the film was out and began to do well did Ladan begin saying that her name should be first instead of mine. Now she is saying I’m not the director.
With every project we’ve done together, Ladan tries to reduce my credits after the fact. These are credits that are agreed on when the project was finished. Sam Diaz is an extremely talented musician and I was honored to work with them. They were also not privy to conversations between myself and Ladan during the production and post-production, and release process.
We both pitched “The Ascendants.” I designed the pitch deck for it. We were both in the pitch meeting. We won the pitch based on both of our hard work. When Ladan first told me about the idea, it was as an article that I should write, about a group of talented young Black women musicians from Chicago who all know each other and are rising together. I told her that she should write it and I should take pictures. She said OK, and I believe she pitched it and it didn’t land. After the success of “Sam, Underground,” I suggested pitching the The Ascendants idea as a documentary series to Topic, the streamer that funded and released “Sam, Underground.” She agreed, and at first insisted that we co-direct it. I said no, she should direct it, and I will be DP and producer.
She is credited as sole writer and director, as well as producer of “The Ascendants.” I am credited as producer in addition to director of photography because I did production work. I did everything from writing budgets, choosing equipment, booking flights, Airbnbs, car rentals, making shooting schedules, making some crew selections, and plenty more. This is also a credit that was never contested at any point of the production, post-production, or release process. Furthermore, I don’t have any “producer control.” Neither of us own the copyright to The Ascendants, it was a work-for-hire project and the copyright is owned by Topic, who funded it and released it on their streaming service. If there is a dispute about a credit, we can use the process outlined in our LLC’s operating agreement to resolve it. She never used that process.
With regards to “Form & Flight,” she is free to release that film at any time using the credits we agreed on. We had submitted it to several places with credits we had agreed on when the film was made. We never got the film placed.
When we were together, Ladan asked me to film multiple poetry videos for her. I did so because I loved her and wanted her career to grow. I was happy to do them. The “release” she is speaking about is me signing any credits or copyrights away, to disappear my name from the films that she asked me to help make. She wrote the credits to those films herself. She can already use those films in any way she wants, and has.
With J Bambii’s “Hermit 9” video, I put in my visioning, time and some money to make that video in order to support a very talented young artist. Ladan and I had decided at the time that we would co-direct it. In act and deed, we co-directed it. Now I supposedly stole it? How?
I’ve never said “police and a mental institution should know she’s dangerous.” I’ve never sexually harassed anyone and I never said she had an “emotional fixation” on me. I don’t have an attorney in South Africa. Throughout my time directing “Sun of the Soil” I tried to foster an inclusive environment.
Yes, I apologized for things that I felt responsible for over the course of our four-year relationship. I’m not Islamophobic, and if someone wants to speak to me about that, please message me. I don’t regret apologizing, though I regret that these personal emails taken out of their contexts have been shared with the wider public and used in this way.
Ladan has shown a consistent pattern of agreeing to terms and credits upon the film’s release, then one or multiple years later, wanting to reduce my rightful role, credit and copyright. I am very serious about my work, I do good work, and I have a more than decade-long professional track record of working well in teams. The claims she is making about me stealing her work are completely false. To the contrary, I supported her work and career at every possible juncture, and far beyond the ways I listed here.
Despite all of this, I wish nothing but the best for Ladan. I hope she gets everything she wants in her career. She is a really talented writer, artist, and filmmaker.
What I’ve learned is that you can do your best, but after a certain point things are no longer in your control. I hope everyone who read up to this point understands where I’m coming from, but I have to assume that not everyone will. Either way, I will continue doing the work I love.
Thank you for reading,
Joe