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Interview with Iman Zawahry: This Is an American Story, Period

brings back the feel-good romcom to theaters with “,” a Pakistani American tale of four lovelorn women in New York City. Khala (Lillete Dubey) is a single mother eager to marry off her two daughters and niece, Sam (Aizzah Fatima), Maryam (Salena Qureshi), and Ameera (Shenaz Treasury). Only there's one problem – or, well, two, or actually kind of three: finding love is a lot harder than it seems. 

For the , we had the opportunity to talk to Zawahry over Zoom. Zawahry is animated and clearly excited; we're lucky, really, to catch her on the day before her NYC in-person premiere. Over the next half-hour, we bounce around the representation and romance, talking through the what it means to be a Muslim American woman filmmaker today.

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This interview has been edited and redacted for clarity. 

I've read that you and Aizzah Fatima co-wrote “Americanish.” How much of it was you, how much of it was Aizzah? 

This movie was based off of Aizzah's play “Dirty Paki Lingerie.” She wrote and acted as six different characters. We took four of those characters and put them into the film. The first four years we were writing it, we were both super green. In the first 2-3 years, I wrote half and she wrote half. After that, we realized we needed one of us to be the primary writer. She became the primary [writer] and I came in with my hard notes all the time. We always try to put ourselves in the characters.

I'm curious to hear more if there are any biographical details. This film features Pakistani-American characters, when you're Egyptian-American; I understand you grew up in Florida, but this takes place in New York. How does this relate to you? 

At the end of the day, this is an American story, period. That's the story I want to tell. I identify as American Muslim before I identify as anything else. That's always been my identity, especially growing up brown in the South. 

Your film frequently references Eddie Murphy's ‘Coming to America' – another comedy of an immigrant coming to Queens for marriage. Did you find it difficult at all to differentiate your film as a Muslim American one rather than an immigrant story? 

I knew that creating a Muslim American story is already different. But I love 80s rom coms. “Coming to America” is one of my favorites. In the writing process, I told Aizzah, “We've got to put in ‘Coming to America.'” Aizzah said, “does it look like we're copying them?” and I said, “What! We're totally homaging this movie.” I just thought it was so hilarious that Ameera's motivation would be based off of this hilarious film. 

(laughs) I definitely have cousins like Ameera.

Right! That's what's so cool about this film. We're just making a story about our experiences and how much from the screenings we've had so far that's related to every ethnicity – where people tell me, I know that person!. That has been my biggest joy. Being as specific as possible to our own experience is what differentiates us, but is also incredibly relatable. 

I think that comes through with Sam's character, when she tries to cover up her last name in front of an Islamophobic senator. In that vein – your film feels like it was very much in response to Trump and Islamophobia post-9/11. Does it feel different to watch “Americanish” now, under a different presidency? 

We added in the Trump-like character in the 4 years we were writing the script. I was very concerned that if we did not put this film out during Trump's presidency, it would plummet. But you know what! There are many of those characters and they're all over the place right now. I live in Florida, and my governor is that person. It's always going to be a situation that we're in. 

Of course, thank God, all of us relaxed when Biden was elected, but there are still so many of them out there. It's always going to be a part of our story. 

One of the biggest feedback I got in Bentonville – my friend had a virtual party. This woman who was a Trump-supporter watched the film. I asked my friend, “Oh, was she offended by it?” And my friend said, “Oh no, not at all, she actually didn't realize how his words affected us.” I was so shocked. Really? How could she not have known? He's blatantly saying it. You know, we're in our own world view, and it's really hard to see anything outside of your own world view. I was so taken aback by that. We're learning from each other. 

And choosing a melting pot location like New York… 

I actually kept telling Aizzah that we should shoot “Americanish” in the South. It's so much easier. I can control the situation [there]. And she said, “No, it's a New York story.” It was such a hard shoot. But I was able to make my first film in NYC, which is such a privilege. Now I'm back here, screening it too. 

How did you find your locations? 

The grocery store was very hard to get. We wanted to make sure our grocery store would be in Jackson Heights, but all the stores there run 24/7. We really wanted to find a place that we could shoot in when they were closed, but it wasn't possible. We finally ended up using the exterior of one grocery store and the interior of another in Brooklyn. We filmed when it was open, too. As we had the camera rolling, we had Ann and Aizzah on the side giving money and taking groceries to keep the business going since they didn't want to close the business down. Godfrey in one of our Q&As said that was his favorite thing. 

The wedding outfit store was totally donated by Rahul, and the wedding clothes too. That was my favorite place. It was so gorgeous, so well-lit. Khala's house was Ann's cousin's home in Queens. He didn't realize what it meant. We were there for 6-7 days. The office scenes were shot in a large studio in Long Island City. We had a ridiculous amount of locations. I'm used to shooting very low-budget things. But if you make a script using 20 locations and 15 speaking roles, then you can't make it for under 100,000 USD. 

What did your budget look like, then?

Aizzah and I travelled the nation trying to get Muslim American investors. We struggled for six years. We're proud to say we received  100% of our financial support from Muslim American investors. Most of them were my and Aizzah's friends and family, but still relationships we've been building over years. 

When we started shooting, we realized  that the script we wrote was much bigger than the money we raised. Our executive producer just literally pulled the entire film through. She put in more than she needed to and kept the film going. At one point, we even had to stop production because we didn't have enough money. So we had to raise money and then go back to production. 

Did you find it difficult to raise money and attract attention for a Muslim American, mostly women cast/crew film? 

Absolutely. This is one of the problems with “firsts” — there's no model. We're trying to convince [investors] that people are going to watch this, they're going to love this, it's going to be great. But we can't show any proof [since there is no precedent]. It was challenging to break that glass ceiling.

For your next film, do you think you'll go down the romcom route again?

I love romcoms.  A friend of mine – Sahar Jahani – is writing a romcom that Mindy Kaling is producing – and I think to myself, I should totally direct that! There's this other Dutch production company overseas that wants me to make this romcom as well. I am directing a web-series with Zarqa Nawaz who did “Little House on the Prairie” (2007-2012) and that's also a romcom. 

My second feature will  not actually be a romcom though. It's my passion project that I really want to make, but I do not want to raise money for. It's about my childhood growing up brown in the South. We skip school to go to MTV's “The Grind,” so it's a road trip film. It's like this Muslim female version of “Superbad” (2007).  

And finally: any last words?

All of our film fests have been amazing. CAAMFest, Bentonville, NYAFF, AAIFF… it was difficult before we had anyone championing us Muslim women. We needed someone to uplift us. I'm very grateful for their support. 

You can follow “Americanish” on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. The film can still be seen online in the Tri-state area (NY, NJ, CT) until 22 August through the Asian American International Film Festival. 

About the author

Grace Han

In a wave of movie-like serendipity revolving around movies, I transitioned from studying early Italian Renaissance frescoes to contemporary cinema. I prefer to cover animated film, Korean film, and first features (especially women directors). Hit me up with your best movie recs on Twitter @gracehahahan !

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