The festival, which begins October 11 at Manhattan’s SVA Theater, positions itself as a response to the flattened, stereotypical image of Muslims often portrayed by Western media. Billed as the city’s first festival for Muslim filmmakers, the New York Muslim Film Festival (NYMFF) asks them to tell their own stories.
Hassan Babar, the festival’s artistic director, said such stories should not be used merely as counter-narratives. “They should be the founding paradigm,” Babar said.
The one-day event will screen 12 short films from seven countries, including documentaries, dramas, comedies, animation and experimental works. The majority of program managers are women.
“This festival exists because these stories deserve a stage in this city, not on the fringes of someone else,” said Nawal Mubin, co-founder and director of the festival.
The day will open with a reception for filmmakers and industry guests. Two blocks of six films each, each approximately an hour long, will precede the awards and jury announcement.
Emmy winner Aasif Mandvi, a longtime correspondent for “The Daily Show” who also starred in the Paramount+ series “Evil,” is on the six-member jury. He is joined by Arab-American writer-director Darine Hotait, founder of Cinephilia Productions, whose short films have appeared on HBO, AMC, SundanceTV and the BBC; Munir Atalla, head of production and acquisitions at Watermelon Pictures and former Netflix creative executive; and producer Abubakar Khan, whose resume includes Pakistan’s 2024 Oscars nominee “The Glassworker” and SXSW 2023 audience award winner “Mustache.”
Rounding out the panel are Sundance Feature Film Fellow Lebanese-American filmmaker Sarah Mokh and Egyptian-American actor Abubakr Ali, who recently wrapped his first feature film, “The Alchemy of Being OK,” produced by Khan. Ali will star alongside Mahershala Ali in Bassam Tariq’s “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother” and Sean Durkin’s A24 film “Deep Cuts” and will soon appear in Kathryn Bigelow’s “A House of Dynamite.”
Streamer Watermelon+ is behind the festival’s Watermelon+ Discovery Award. The winner, whether the filmmaker or the rights holder, will grant the platform an exclusive license to show the film for a limited time. The Islamic Scholarship Fund, founded by filmmaker Aneesa Khan to support South Asian and Muslim creators, New York production and post house Lost in Space and Aneesa Talks have also signed on as partners.
The program ranges widely in tone and subject matter. Justin Mashouf’s documentary “$17.74” follows a former gang member who has been behind bars since the 1980s and whose gesture of support for Gaza from prison sparked a viral wave of solidarity. In Karim Emara’s Qatar-US drama “Father Is Melting,” a son calls his father, who is waiting in the car before Friday prayers in Doha, to challenge him about his secret second marriage.
Zaid Ahmed Hassan’s “Gusl” focuses on a son whose dying father asks him to learn Islamic funeral rites; Basma Khalifa’s experimental work “Henna” in the United Kingdom follows the life cycle of the henna plant with women from 16 African and SWANA countries. Sima Naseem’s Canadian-Pakistani animation “My Friend in the Jingle Truck” combines stop-motion and 2D to tell the story of a Karachi girl meeting a magical bird.
In Alex Aljouni’s “Bukra”, a young Syrian refugee whose raffle prize is a soccer ball tries to collect it in time for one last match with his best friend before he is gone for good. A bold move reopens old fissures between three generations of Afghan women in Negine Jasmine Sekandari and Ayda Rojhantalab’s comedy “Haram Salami”; women weigh who they are against the demands and wishes of tradition.
Maram Taibah’s Saudi fantasy “Malika” explores a girl’s bond with her grandmother and the tug of war between wildness and the obedience expected of girls through a magical-realist world woven from a child’s imagination. In Bilal Shams Khan’s Pakistani drama “Sabr O Shukar,” 10-year-old Akram learns patience and gratitude as he pursues his cycling dream.
Imran J. Khan’s “The Boy with the Dinosaur Head” pits a troubled boy who believes he is a dinosaur against a teacher determined to bring him back to reality, and their brief encounter affects them both. Ilhan Abdullahi and Sherry Rashidan’s Canadian comedy “Unqualified” follows Warsan, the lone Muslim at work, who is given the task of spiritually cleansing a rumored haunted cafeteria and, armed with his faith and a series of misunderstandings, must cleanse the souls before losing his job.
Lyna Tadount and Sofian Chouaib’s French drama “Ya Hanouni” focuses on two parents competing to be their baby’s first word, whose joyful competition is cut short by an event that turns their lives upside down.
Babar, a Toronto-based actor and producer, oversees the programming with Aneesa Khan, who also handles communications. New York-based director-producer Mubin co-founded the festival with filmmaker and post-production expert Giuseppe de Matteis. Both work on Lost in Space.