When I walked into the theater to see Wild, I’ll admit I was a little skeptical at first. As someone who had not read the memoir before seeing the movie, I thought the film would be a little too Eat, Pray, Love for my taste, similar to Elizabeth Gilbert’s privileged…
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Today altMuslimah speaks to filmmaker and journalist Nadya Ali about her upcoming documentary “Breaking Silence.” The film will be the first of its kind in documenting Muslim American women’s stories of sexual abuse, how they coped and how they came out to their families and friends. The film will follow…
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I have a somewhat unusual background—my father is a conservative Indian immigrant and my mother is from Kentucky. It’s also worth noting that my mother is very country and very white. As for myself, I was raised on red meat, potatoes and classic rock in Columbus, Ohio. I recall my childhood being quintessentially American, but with something of a twist.
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Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson (Captain America, Lost in Translation) just announced that she is stepping down from her 8-year role as Oxfam Ambassador due to pressure from the organization to stop supporting SodaStream, a company whose factories operate illegally in Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine territories.
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A video about female Muslim hipsters–“Mipsterz”–recently went viral on Facebook, started by and further provoking a frenzy of commentary. “Somewhere in America” co-creators, Abbas Rattani and Habib Yazdi of Sheikh & Bake Productions speak to Altmuslimah about their motivations for the video and thoughts on the reactions.
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Badly needing a relaxing night out, my husband and I decided to see the movie Captain Philips…with one stipulation: I didn’t want to have the “Look what America has done to destroy others’ countries” conversation afterwards. It’s not that I shy away from analytical conversations about the United States and its involvement in foreign affairs, but for one evening, I wanted to enjoy an evening of blissful ignorance at the movies.
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A full moon hung low one North Carolina night. Omar ibn Said was on the run from his South Carolina master who had almost beaten him to death a month earlier. When Omar came upon a church, he whispered “Praise Allah” under his breath. He took ablutions by the well in the churchyard and then entered the sanctuary to perform his Islamic prayers.
A young white boy saw him walk inside. Men on horseback with a pack of dogs quickly arrived to snatch Omar, mid-prostration, off to jail.
Lena Khan is an award winning American-Muslim filmmaker who commenced an ambitious Kickstarter campaign to fund her film project,The Tiger Hunter. Author Deonna Kelli Sayed talks to Lena about filmmaking, faith, and the challenge in launching her latest movie.
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The latest terrorist thriller “Zero Dark Thirty” was released today and has already received an Oscar nod for “Best Picture,” but I am not as confident about the film as the Academy appears to be. I have been debating whether or not I should buy my $10 ticket and watch “Zero Dark Thirty” in a theater. . . All that aside, my fear of watching the movie in a theater stems from my hijab. You may ask yourself, what does hijab have to do with it? To be honest: everything.
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The overwhelming success of the dystopian young adult novel, The Hunger Games, and its film adaptation calls into question the amount of violence we expose Muslim adolescents to without a second thought. If we exercise such careful discretion over sexually explicit material, why not at least show a fraction of concern about violence in a film like this one?
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