In the wake of 9/11, a First-Gen Muslim teenager discovers her mother’s record collection. The songs reflect her parent’s migration stories to America, and serve as a roadmap to Amina’s identity. As music unlocks memories, Amina remembers who she.
Sampling allows her to unlock and rearrange memories in the present. A dance ensues between the feeling of being watched and watched over, as memories of herself with her family create an oppositional gaze to surveillance.
Through the intersection of music and memory, this hybrid film blurs the lines between surveillance and archival repair (1). It is indiscernible to know “who is watching who,” but in a world that is watching, Amina chooses how she sees herself.
This short is a proof of concept for the feature length script. This project has made it on the Inaugural Cannes List, Black List X Muslim List, Respectability Lab, Athena Writing Workshop, Women in Film Mentoring program, and published in the The Blue Print for Muslim Inclusion (Pillars Fund, Riz Ahmed / Left Handed Films, USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative). In 2022, it was accepted to the NALIP Media Market and invited to the Sundance Institute inaugural Latine Scholarship Program.