June's Arab Film Series celebrates Pride month with AFMI's award-winning Queer Lens program from the 23rd Arab Film Festival. This showcase of LGBTQ+ works stands proud in bridging the gap of representation per specific facets of the underrepresented queer Arab experience so often ignored by the mainstream. By virtue of this program we aim to celebrate the multi-dimensional formations of Arab queerness in lieu of stories that so urgently need to be told, especially in today’s polarized media climate that leaves issues of visibility lost in the haze, or, worse: cast in a one-size-fits-all "Western Queer Narrative" that ignores the many complexities and nuances faced by LGBTQ+ persons in the Arab World and beyond, including Arab Americans and Muslims.
From a music video about a first generation gay Muslim Arab-American man coming to grips with his conservative father, a night on the town with two millennials in Dearborn Michigan with a lesbian twist, and a gender-bending self-awakening as a young Lebanese man channels the secret memories of his belly dancing mother; to stories that reveal the vulnerability, sacrifices, and tribulations of gay Syrian refugee men forced into sex work to make ends meet in Europe – Queer Lens will inspire you to re-visit and re-contextualize what you thought you knew about Arab queerness, as if beholding the refracted prism of a lens flare to reveal truths that shine in ways you have not seen before.
In the midst of the Arab-American enclave of Dearborn, Michigan, Roshan has moved back to her parents' house in Metro Detroit after many failed years in NYC. With her OCD in overdrive she meets up with her old college friend Ayman during Ramadan. He disrupts their iftar plans, however, and Roshan finds herself having to deal with all sorts of characters who take over her car. The night turns out to be full of surprises – some annoying, and some wonderful.
Director Bio:
Hena Ashraf is a writer-director who creates subtle and multi-layered narratives with intriguing outsider characters. Born in London to parents from the subcontinent, she spent her early years in the United Kingdom before im/migrating to America and is currently finishing her MFA in Film Directing at UCLA. Her work has been supported by the Brooklyn Arts Council, Tribeca Film Institute, Islamic Scholarship Fund, Norris Foundation, BAFTA Los Angeles, MPAA, and most recently she was awarded a Wasserman Film Production Fellowship and the Adrienne Shelly Foundation Thesis Award. Ashraf's work focuses on the trials and traumas of migrant life, centering queer migrants of color and commenting upon the dilemmas of faith.
- Year2018
- Runtime9 minutes
- LanguageArabic
- CountryUnited States
- DirectorHena Ashraf
- ScreenwriterHena Ashraf
- ProducerJanae Marable
- CastRoshni Shukla, Lea Madda, Nima Jafari, Davis J. Anderson
June's Arab Film Series celebrates Pride month with AFMI's award-winning Queer Lens program from the 23rd Arab Film Festival. This showcase of LGBTQ+ works stands proud in bridging the gap of representation per specific facets of the underrepresented queer Arab experience so often ignored by the mainstream. By virtue of this program we aim to celebrate the multi-dimensional formations of Arab queerness in lieu of stories that so urgently need to be told, especially in today’s polarized media climate that leaves issues of visibility lost in the haze, or, worse: cast in a one-size-fits-all "Western Queer Narrative" that ignores the many complexities and nuances faced by LGBTQ+ persons in the Arab World and beyond, including Arab Americans and Muslims.
From a music video about a first generation gay Muslim Arab-American man coming to grips with his conservative father, a night on the town with two millennials in Dearborn Michigan with a lesbian twist, and a gender-bending self-awakening as a young Lebanese man channels the secret memories of his belly dancing mother; to stories that reveal the vulnerability, sacrifices, and tribulations of gay Syrian refugee men forced into sex work to make ends meet in Europe – Queer Lens will inspire you to re-visit and re-contextualize what you thought you knew about Arab queerness, as if beholding the refracted prism of a lens flare to reveal truths that shine in ways you have not seen before.
In the midst of the Arab-American enclave of Dearborn, Michigan, Roshan has moved back to her parents' house in Metro Detroit after many failed years in NYC. With her OCD in overdrive she meets up with her old college friend Ayman during Ramadan. He disrupts their iftar plans, however, and Roshan finds herself having to deal with all sorts of characters who take over her car. The night turns out to be full of surprises – some annoying, and some wonderful.
Director Bio:
Hena Ashraf is a writer-director who creates subtle and multi-layered narratives with intriguing outsider characters. Born in London to parents from the subcontinent, she spent her early years in the United Kingdom before im/migrating to America and is currently finishing her MFA in Film Directing at UCLA. Her work has been supported by the Brooklyn Arts Council, Tribeca Film Institute, Islamic Scholarship Fund, Norris Foundation, BAFTA Los Angeles, MPAA, and most recently she was awarded a Wasserman Film Production Fellowship and the Adrienne Shelly Foundation Thesis Award. Ashraf's work focuses on the trials and traumas of migrant life, centering queer migrants of color and commenting upon the dilemmas of faith.
- Year2018
- Runtime9 minutes
- LanguageArabic
- CountryUnited States
- DirectorHena Ashraf
- ScreenwriterHena Ashraf
- ProducerJanae Marable
- CastRoshni Shukla, Lea Madda, Nima Jafari, Davis J. Anderson