DONATIONS NEEDED
One last push!
We’re getting closer to principal photography and we still need donations to reach our goal. Help us make this film and donate today!
The Story
When a Palestinian American teenager struggling with self-acceptance visits a hair salon with her relatives, her insecurities are challenged.
In this coming of age drama set in the mid-2000s, NOUR, 16, a Palestinian American girl, must rediscover her multicultural identity after years of repressing her background and growing up among western standards of beauty. Nour visits Palestine to attend a family wedding, meeting some of her relatives for the first time. On the morning of the ceremony, she begrudgingly accompanies her aunties to the salon to get ready. Guided by her aunt MONA who resents Nour’s single father YOUSEF for leaving, Nour is overwhelmed among the new and eclectic mix of family members. She soon finds role models in her female relatives, who inspire her to embrace herself. In one afternoon, Nour navigates culture and belonging, finally finding her own beat in the music.
Director’s Statement
When I was young, I didn’t know where I belonged, or even what belonging felt like. I was constantly unsure of how to move through my small Utah world. A lot of kids experience bullying, but the scars of what others said to me lingered into adulthood. I was teased for my ‘frizzy’ hair, taunted for my ‘hairy arms’, and laughed at for my ‘mustache’ and ‘bushy eyebrows’. All these parts of myself came from my Palestinian heritage, which I knew very little about and deemed to be another negative way for me to stand out.
Western beauty standards really got into my head. To fit them would mean I’d have to change. Changing oneself is a lot of work– it takes maintenance. Maintenance I didn’t see my peers having to do to meet those same standards. I began to resent the parts of myself I felt took too much work, becoming angry at my body for the way I was born. It seemed like endless effort just to feel some marginal sense of belonging. There was something missing though, which was the truth: I belong between worlds.
When I traveled back to Palestine for the first time, I felt a sense of belonging that had forever been elusive. Being around other Arab women felt right. I didn’t stand out visually, and for the first time, I felt I was with my people. There was still a gap in my understanding of who ‘my people’ were, though, and in the back of my head, I still didn’t feel like I belonged, not really. It took opening up about my pain to other women to gain a genuine sense of acceptance. Learning to love myself coincided with learning more about my culture and femininity. They are two things I hold very close to my heart, and now I want to show the beauty of my culture with pride. My hope is to talk about Palestine through human interaction and family, not focusing on our strife, but on what our strife is fighting to preserve.
The Creative Team
The Jamila Creative Team are a group of graduate students from the 2023 class of the American Film Institute’s MFA. Meet us below!
Julia Freij | Director
Julia Freij is a Palestinian-American Director originally from Salt Lake City, Utah. She has written and directed short films and a music video. She is a 2nd year Directing fellow at the American Film Institute Conservatory. She is a highly independent filmmaker who channels her experience as a bi-cultural woman to give voice to the often unheard and to elicit the empathy that exists even within often hidden humanity. Her stories place women at the forefront focusing on the trials and tribulations that come with learning how to own one’s femininity.
Peri Michael | Producer
Peri is a producer from the greater Boston area. Adopted from China, she has largely been shaped by her upbringing in the small-town rural Northeast. She studied business, communication, and film at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. After school, she worked in production in the New England film industry for three years and started producing independently. She’s ecstatic to study at AFI, and her ultimate goal is to produce innovative and inclusive content.
Meg Dudley | Screenwriter
Meg Dudley graduated cum laude from Simmons College with a BA in Political Science and International Relations. Pursuing a career in film and tv production, she has spent the last 11 years on more film and tv sets than she can count (she’s very bad at math). Dudley has produced multiple award-winning, Oscar®-qualifying short films and, most recently, a feature film with George Pelecanos which premiered at Austin Film Festival and is available on all the streaming everything. Now fully focused on writing, she has found her happy place telling stories and making her parents cringe.
Pascale Williams | Cinematographer
Pascale Williams’ passion for storytelling grew out of her multicultural experience and background. These experiences have helped her understand both the intersectionality of culture as well as a variety of modes of communication. Williams thrives when given the opportunity to meet and embrace others while discovering not only what makes each person tick but also what may assist them in reaching their fullest potential. As somebody who sees themself as a citizen of the world, Williams sees it as a responsibility to represent previously unheard voices while telling new and interesting stories with the utmost intention and care.
Camila Rodríguez | Production Designer
Camila is an Uruguayan Architect and Production Designer. She was raised in Brazil, and after going back to her hometown, she graduated from the Universidad de la Republica (Uruguay, 2020) with a dual BA/MFA in Architecture. She studied at the IUAV (Italy) and had an introduction to Theatre Design at the EMAD (Uruguay).
Camila has 6+ years of graphic design experience, as well as 3 years of on-set experience in the art department.
Ivanka Lawrence | Editor
Ivanka Lawrence is a film editor, currently based in Los Angeles. She has worked on various student projects in different genres and is excited to support and enhance the team’s visionary goals for the story that we want to tell. She is currently pursuing her MFA degree in Editing at the American Film Institute.
We need your help!
Jamila relies on your generous donations to reach full funding for the production and post-production process. Help us reach our goal of $35,000.
Please send your donations as early as possible so we can use them in time for the start of production on March 24th, 2023.
Click below for the direct link to donate, or to find out more ways you can help us fund this project.
We thank you so much for your support!
More ways you can help us fund this project:
Checks can be mailed to:
American Film Institute
C/O 2315 Jamila
2021 N Western Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90027
We also accept matching grants and in-kind donations!
If your company has a matching grant program, or you would like to make an in-kind donation of goods or services, please contact us at frayedthefilm@gmail.com for more information.
Perks
In addition to the tax benefit, everyone who donates will be thanked in the credits, and large donors will be offered Producer titles.
$10,000 – Executive Producer
$5,000 – Associate Producer
$1,000 – Special Thanks
<$1,000 – Thanks
Contact
frayedthefilm@gmail.com
The American Film Institute (AFI) is a 501(c)(3) NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION, and your contributions may be TAX DEDUCTIBLE to the full extent of the law. Donors will receive a receipt to the email provided during check out and an acknowledgement letter will be sent in the mail within 4 weeks that can be used for tax purposes.
Peri Michael 