"Bare Hands" by Nadira Ilana

Bare Hands from starranise on Vimeo.

Bare Hands

By Nadira Ilana

If I were to lose my hands, there are many things I wouldn't be able to do.
The first that occurred to me was that: you would love me less.
Sex.
We could not make love because I would not be able to embrace you.
I would be, two , maybe three holes for you to penetrate?
and all creativity and activity in our familiar nights would be muted.

And I'd have to change the world with my orifices that travel with the mere help of my legs.
I'll never again have a city under my fingernails.
Never again take a photo without parting my legs;
Hold a pen,
push your buttons,
pull your buttons.
Dab my lipstick,
flip the bird
'flip the bean'.
Tell if I'm bleeding or show you what I mean when...
You would love me less if I couldn't hold your head while we kissed
Touched your face when something's amiss.

And my heart would go to you further.
Further than if I had my arms back to hold you!
And you could love me, if you're into that kind of thing

If you didn't, I wouldn't say a thing.


© 2008 Nadira Ilana


Creative process: Nadira Ilana doesn't claim to have a creative process per se, other than being an experience junkie because art comes naturally to her. She says: "It's either I like my work or I don't, really. Then I move onto the next project. I don't like spending too much time tweaking and reediting my stuff, whether film or writing, because it comes from a specific source and time, which I don't question. Or maybe I'm just lazy and conceited."


Nadira Ilana was born and raised in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. Not finding an arts industry in her hometown, Nadira (now 21) taught herself to dabble in music, performance arts and creative writing. In 2005 she moved to Brisbane, Australia, to attend the Queensland University of Technology, where she started dabbling in the art of filmmaking. In mid-2007 Nadira attended Montclair State University in New Jersey for a year on a student exchange and interned in New York. Now back in Brisbane, she writes, directs, edits, acts, photographs and films. Her idea of a break from film is acting in one, writing, reading and living. She doesn't claim to have a creative process per se, other than not liking cameos in her own films and being an experience junkie.

Nadira's films have been screened in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, with a couple more screenings to come in Australia and America this year. Due to graduate from QUT at the end of 2008 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film and Television, she hopes to move back to Malaysia to join the Asian filmmaker's rat race. She's contemplating getting more of her writing published, but plotting film festivals and grants make her cross-eyed, as it is. She hopes to shoot a feature film in her hometown in the next two years ... mostly because they say it can't be done.