Muslim Youth Voices

In this documentary, filmmaker Dunya Khalil brings attention to Syrian refugees, particularly children and youth who have become orphans. She learns about young people who have been purposely shot in the spine in order to paralyze them and prevent them from rebelling against the government.

A young woman named U76T lives a mundane and ordinary existence, going to work every day at a factory and collecting her food ration. But everything changes one day when she’s summoned by the queen and meets someone unexpected along the way.

Money and power corrupt in this tale of politics set in the Pacific Northwest. Basil has ambitions to become the mayor of Portland. To do so, he takes money from a shadowy figure, giving up everything he stands for in the process — even his own name.

In the near future, Congress passes a law targeting Muslim Americans that bans religious garb in public. The government sets up a new surveillance agency to enforce the law. When two Muslim boys go outside to play basketball, they risk getting caught.

Mina is looking forward to her high school graduation — and especially to seeing her sister from Tehran who plans to attend the milestone event. When the Muslim Travel Ban goes into effect and keeps the sister from visiting, Mina’s friend has an idea to cheer her up.

Shemsedin recounts the day he arrives in America with his sister. With a sense of wonderment — but also some apprehension — he cautiously explores his new home. When he’s unsure of how to navigate his new school and make friends, a teacher notices and helps him find his way.

Cutting remarks from her mother send a teenage girl on a quest to change her appearance. Bombarded by media messages that reinforce the notion that lighter skin means prettier, the girl slathers on a product that claims to make her “white before you know it” until she comes to a breaking point.

From the first line, “I feel like I’m on fire,” Mikel Aki’leh delivers a powerful poem on beauty and blackness. Against a rhythmic score, Aki’leh enumerates the ways in which she’s been told that her black skin is “a sign of dirt” to others — and how she ultimately finds strength and confidence through her faith.

In Cedar-Riverside, an immigrant neighborhood in Minneapolis, the Brian Coyle Community Center runs an after school arts program that helps youth express their own thoughts and experiences. The program has nurtured teens like Sisco, a spoken word poet who now teaches in the program where he was once a participant.

A teenager sits transfixed in front of the TV all day, mindlessly absorbing negative images and prompting her mother to scold her. After a horrifying dream, the teen takes her mother’s advice to heart, unlocking a world of imagination and poetry from within.

Singer songwriter Jude struggles with expectations placed on her to obscure her heritage. Her manager asks if she plans to wear a hijab like her mother, telling her that it would be detrimental to her image. After a botched performance and plummeting confidence, a chance encounter helps her gain direction.

Zain and Moiz are walking in a park when they come across a “danger” sign at the edge of the woods. To Zain, this seems like a challenge to explore a forbidden area. But Moiz has a bad feeling about it as he reluctantly follows Zain into the woods.