Tunisian filmmaker Kalthoum Bornaz’s film Shtar M’Haba (The Other Half of the Sky) was recently discussed in Lebanon’s The Daily Star. As it turns out, Bornaz was the only female director to enter the official competition at Ouagadougou’s Pan-African Film and Television Festival earlier this month. The Daily Star tells us that she was not […]

A longer version of this article appears on altmuslimah, while this version appeared at Racialicious. I finally got around to watching AmericanEast this weekend. Full disclosure: I had originally read Tariq Nelson’s review, which was a pretty good rundown. AmericanEast is an attempt at mainstreaming American Muslims and attempts to portray the struggles Muslims face […]

There’s a new Moroccan movie out that, on the surface, seems to tackle the issue of pre-marital sex in the country. They’re a dime a dozen these days, but this one is stirring up controversy like crazy. Why? I’ll give you a hint: The name of the movie is Amours Voilées,  Hijab al-hob, which translates […]

I watched Brick Lane last night. Full disclosure: I haven’t read the book. I wanted to, I swear. Just never got around to it. So I can’t offer book-versus-movie criticism, which doesn’t seem like such a big deal considering that everyone always says that “the book is better,” anyway. But I really enjoyed the movie. […]

CBC radio’s weekly documentary program, Dispatches, recently ran a documentary by Natasha Fatah on Nia Dinata, one of Indonesia’s best known film directors. In the documentary, entitled Cinema, censorship and sex, Fatah speaks with the internationally acclaimed director about her latest film, Chants of Lotus, as well as her experiences with film making in Indonesia. […]

Spoiler alert: this post discusses important plot points. This past weekend I finally went to see Slumdog Millionaire. I have to admit that I loved the film and Jamal’s rags-to -riches tale. The film has a fairytale bent that makes it likable (who doesn’t like for the beat up hero to overcome and be happy […]

The first thing anyone, male or female, Arab or not ever says to me when they find out I’m Libyan is, “Wow, I’ve never met a Libyan before.” The follow-up question almost always involves a snide comment about Libya’s female bodyguards. These lovely ladies, trained in combat, accompany Colonel Qaddafi, Libya’s head of state, everywhere […]

Last week’s “Friday Links” linked to a story of a documentary about forced marriages of young Pakistani-British girls to men in Pakistan. I followed the link and decided to watch this new British documentary. I found the film, called Forced to Marry and which aired on BBC Two on December 1st: fascinating, frustrating, disturbing, chilling, […]

I have been wanting to write about this for a looooong time. As a South Asian who grew up in Canada, Hindi films (aka Bollywood films) were always a way to stay connected to the my South Asian heritage. However, I have always known this to be a problematic connection, for a number of reasons: […]

This was written by Pedestrian and originally appeared at her blog. When you come from a broken home, it’s tough to talk about your past – or present. How much do you let out? How much does the world need to know? I couldn’t help ponder the issue over and over as I was watching […]