Hijabtrendz.com Exclusive!

Check out the interview by Mariam Sobh with Iman Zawahry, a Muslim Filmmaker!

http://hijabtrendz.com/2009/03/30/hijabtrendz-exclusive-iman-zawahry/

New Muslim Cool: Filmmaker's Statement

“NEW MUSLIM COOL”

By Jennifer Maytorena Taylor

Tuesday, June 23, 2009 on PBS (Check local listings)

Filmmaker’s Statement

I had an accidental start as a documentary filmmaker. Injuries ended my modern-dance career before it really began, and during my recuperation I spent a few years teaching in New York City and San Francisco Head Start and special-education classrooms. I started to learn that everybody has a story worth listening to, if you can just take the time and really open your ears and mind. And “normal” is usually in the eye of the beholder.

I alternated those teaching gigs with time spent living in Brazil and Argentina, as both countries were transitioning to elected governments from the military dictatorships of the ’70s and ’80s. Watching my friends and relatives emerge from the trauma of those years, I was struck by how powerfully each country’s pop culture was helping people express themselves collectively and individually.

Flashing forward to the period right after 9/11 — I was working as a producer at San Francisco’s PBS affiliate, KQED, when offered the chance to do some pieces on South Asian youth in the Bay Area. In the course of my research I discovered a thriving Muslim hip-hop scene in Oakland, where an incredibly diverse group of young men and women from both convert and born-Muslim backgrounds were collaborating to create a culture that was both expressing their faith and reaffirming their American-ness.

It struck me that these young artists were using pop culture in much the same way those Brazilian and Argentine musicians were doing a decade before — to coalesce as a community after a terrible event, while making new spaces for individual expression that would further the evolution of a shared national identity.

Thinking of other seminal cultural and musical moments, I came up with a be-bop inspired title, New Muslim Cool; put together a team that includes my two amazing co-producers Kauthar Umar and Hana Siddiqi; raised some initial funds and started filming.

At first we thought we would make a “survey” film about American Muslim youth culture, a sort of ensemble piece with several intersecting characters on the road with a small Muslim hip-hop label. The film would explore the diversity and dynamism of this young American community, examine hip-hop as the lingua franca of youth everywhere, and show how young American Muslims — like so many other people — are using new technologies to bring faith and pop culture together.

All of those cultural themes still run through the finished film. But once we decided to focus on Hamza Perez and his family and community in Pittsburgh, the project took on a whole other life and deeper meaning. Hip-hop culture became less the focus of the film and more the context, and the real heart of the film became Hamza’s and his wife Rafiah’s day-to-day and spiritual life.
We followed Hamza, Rafiah and their community as they faced the ups and downs of life through three years. They confronted everyday challenges like getting to know the in-laws and having to cope with Rafia giving birth by C-section, and not-so-everyday challenges like possibly being under some form of surveillance that nobody could quite figure out. Often these disparate circumstances were laid directly on top of each other, so in the space of two minutes during an interview Rafiah would wonder about a mysterious panel van parked outside her house and then ask who forgot to put the lid on the peanut butter. It was a little surreal sometimes, but so is real life when you really think about it.

At the outset of this project when we were thinking it would be a cool and clever film about hip-hop culture, I’m not sure any of us — crew and characters alike — anticipated how deeply we would end up exploring the most elemental processes that make us human: the need so many of us have for some form of faith, to seek goodness, maintain hope, find forgiveness, fall in love. But that’s part of the magic of making long-form documentaries. You just never know where you’ll end up. And wherever that is you’ve been profoundly changed, for the better by the journey.

-Jennifer Maytorena Taylor, Director/Producer/Writer.

Taylor's Filmmaker Statement was originally posted for PBS's POV.

"New Muslim Cool: will be the opening night feature on the acclaimed PBS series P.O.V. on June 23rd. Check out local listings: http://www.pbs.org/pov/tvschedule.php

Featured Film Maker: Sultan Sharrief

My name is Sultan Sharrief. I am an independent filmmaker from Detroit Michigan. Right now I am putting finishing touches on my second feature film entitled Bílal’s Stand- a semi-autobiographical story of the challenges and tribulations Black Muslim youth face. The film was made as part of a youth film program I created as a partnership between my production company Beyond blue productions and the University of Michigan. The program, entitled “Student EFEX” Encouraging the Filmmaking EXperience, puts U M students from many fields of study together with inner-city high school students. The purpose is to give creative and energetic students the opportunity to make a professional film while simultaneously installing ethical responsibilities through the hands-on learning, the promotion of teamwork, patience, responsibility, networking, and cross-cultural communication skills.

People always ask me (especially Muslims), isn’t it scary being a filmmaker and not having a steady job or steady income (I work project to project). I simply smile and tell them that, “God willing, everything will work out”. The truth of the matter is that I feel I have just as much job security as any engineer or doctor. When it all boils down, anything any individual has is from God, and it isn’t solely based on the work that he/she does. So being a filmmaker is only as risky as God makes it for me and, thankfully, he’s blessed me a thousand times over. Much of my reasoning and my decision to become a filmmaker comes from my interpretation of the following Hadith, “"I am as My servant expects Me to be. I am with him if he remembers Me. If he remembers Me to himself, I would remember him to Myself. And if he remembers Me in a gathering, I would remember him in a gathering, which is even better….”

I graduated from the University of Michigan in 2006 with a degree in Film and Video Studies. In addition to filmmaking, I have a background in arts programming and community service. I used this experience in 2004 when producing my first 35mm feature film- which was (inadvertently) done in the manner mentioned above. The The Spiral Project, which was budgeted by Hollywood agents to cost 3 million dollars, was shot in metro Detroit for $100,000.00 through the use of creative producing, dedicated students, and community involvement. Three weeks after our premiere, the film was nominated for a 2006 MTV Movie Award in the best student film category. It was one of five finalists out of over five hundred entries. While we did not win, the publicity got us in touch with Tapestry films (Pay it Forward, Wedding Crashers) and they picked up the film for management.

Although I was thrilled with the success of the film, in retrospect I felt that we could have accomplished so much more. We were sixty students strong, putting in eighty hour weeks, using all of our resources, and running all over Metro Detroit, but the content of the film—a high school playwright who got caught up with a dangerous girl—didn’t do the process justice. I also felt that our portrayals of the inner-city, the place where many students like myself call home, were stereotypical and a bit derogatory. As a diverse group of students we had a rare type of networking power and resourceful dedication that can really make a difference, not only in regards to filmmaking, but in the community. This power is what we transformed into the EFEX project and it has been running successfully ever since.

Sultan Sharrief

www.bilalsstand.com

How Films Impact Us

I would bet you that an overwhelming majority of the world's population know what a film is. We can't assume that everyone has seen a film of course, but I'm sure that most people in most populations around the world, would be able to say they know what a film is.

So what is a film? Well in this context, a film is a feature-length fictional narrative. Let's not forget of course, that we have short films and documentaries, but in the popular and mainstream sense of the word, movies, or films, are typically 90 minutes to over 3 hours (ahem, the subcontinent), and are based on stories.

That's really what it comes down to – storytelling. The history of motion pictures is of telling stories through film, and now also through video. Name a topic or issue and there's probably a film about it. Films are also about conflict – conflict drives the story. At the heart of the narrative is the conflict. Without the conflict, internal or external of the characters, there would be no story. And that goes for fiction and documentary films.

So what sort of impact and influence do films have on us? Well ok, this should be obvious. They make us cry, they make us laugh, they make us scared, and sometimes sad or even frustrated. Films have a considerable influence on us, and not just on how we feel, but also on how we think about and perceive our world.

I will demonstrate with a couple of examples. Rang De Basanti was a massive Hindi film that came out in 2006, and starred Aamir Khan, my all-time favourite Indian actor. RDB's story and conflict is essentially about how the ruling elite of India today can be just as oppressive and ruthless as the British who colonized India. This film raised my awareness of the corruption in the Indian government and also gave me a better understanding of Indian revolutionaries, who are shown during the time of British India.

So films can have a positive influence on us and can raise our awareness of certain issues or communities. On the other hand, some films play into stereotypes and thus subversively influence audiences to see the communities represented onscreen in a negative light. I find this to be most prevalent in Hollywood, out of all the film industries. Hollywood films are typically racist, sexist, xenophobic, and so on – and Hollywood producers and directors think nothing of it. A classic example is John Ford's The Searchers with John Wayne, which depicted Native Americans as being utter savages – violent, bloodthirsty, and primitive. Effectively, this portrayal was a dehumanization of Native Americans. Such depictions certainly influenced audiences' perception and understanding of Native Americans extremely negatively.

The films that we see have a significant role in shaping our understanding of the world around us, including people different from you and me, and on social issues. Don't think for a moment that you're an exception – trust me, you're not. Visual images have an accumulative effect and can either positively or negatively impact our thinking and understanding. It's up to you to decide what you watch. I recommend you watch films that are entertaining but will also educate you and provide you with more perspective on our world.

- Hena Ashraf is a filmmaker with interests in photography, writing, and new media. She founded the Ann Arbor Palestine Film Festival in the summer of 2008, and is a fierce advocate for the making and use of independent media.