To an audience bombarded with images of the Islamic world’s troubled relationship with Western culture, the Muslim Film Festival in Washington, D.C., paints a picture of diversity of how Islam fits and lives within the social fabric of Western settings.
The festival, organized by the American Islamic Congress and Project Nur, runs from April 19 to 27 and presents a diverse group of films all dealing with the same topic in different rubics: Muslim identity.
The 2010 Sundance Film Festival selection “The Taqwacores,” directed by Eyad Zahra, depicts the electrifying underground subculture of Muslim punk-rockers in Buffalo, NY. Based on Michael Muhammad Knight’s 2003 cult novel of the same name, the movie does an incredible job of portraying the ultimate in-your-face mashing of two counter-mainstream cultural phenomena: being punk and being Muslim in America.
In an interview with The Eagle, Zahra voiced his concerns over the release of the film.
“I was not certain that this film would be ‘Islamically-accepted,’ but there has been no negative response to it,” Zahra said. “It has seen nothing but good.”
If there is any message he expounded on it is that “the Muslim community is wide and diverse.” Zahra’s direction is superb in showing us that the characters in the movie are not on some contrived faux-rebellion tip against society — if anything, they are simply living only as they know how and accepting in a sort of resigned, almost cynical way that simply being who they are by definition makes them subversive. As the pink-mohawked guitarist Jehangir (Dominic Rains) puts it, he is the embodiment of a “mismatching of disenfranchised subcultures.”
In addition to the absolutely stunning cinematography, (the movie’s cadence is really unique and true to its ’80s punk-zine aesthetic), the cast of characters is thrilling to watch. There is shy Yusef (Bobby Naderi), an ever-angry, moral-enforcing, straight-edge engineering student named Umar (Nav Mann) and a burqa-wearing feminist-of-sorts named Rabeya (Noureen DeWulf), whose attire baffles even her roommates. When Jehangir decides to put on a punk show, hosting Muslim punk bands from “Khalifornia,” things get ugly in a punksense.
“The Taqwacores” is also full of clever, funny dialogue such as Jehangir’s description of the chastity battle as a “jihad against my nuts.” Ultimately, the theme is that even through the rebellion and struggle, there is an ever-present thread of faith and spirituality — “Allah is too big and too open for my Islam to be small and closed.”
Considering the fact that an estimated 65 percent of the world’s Muslim population is under the age of 30, the films embody a youthful, vibrant ethos and offer a glimpse into a world that is quite removed from the plucked-from-the-headlines “angry young Arab man” stereotype — simply put, they show that subversive is not equal to “angry mob.” The protagonists in the films breakdance, play in indie rock bands, paint graffiti, throw punk rock shows and, in general, provide quite refreshing, nuanced and trenchant answers to the question of what it means to be a Muslim.
The 2009 Cannes Film Festival Special Jury Prize selection “No One Knows About Persian Cats” explores the difficulties Iranian youth face in trying to produce and perform rock music. It’s a breathless exposé on a cat-and-mouse game but the movie does not take on a fatalistic, cynical view. If anything, it shows that even under repressive regimes, there is a strong undercurrent of creativity. Case in point, Iran has metal and indie rock bands, too, and even Sufi musicians who have to record their music underground.
The DC Muslim Film Fest’s film selections showcase both the struggles and triumphs of being Muslim in a modern context. The festival highlights the struggle in defining one’s identity with the challenges of discrimination and repression while successfully raising thought-provoking discussions on Muslim identity.
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