: Filmmaker Chronicles “My Big Fat Muslim Life”

Canadian filmmaker Zarqa Nawaz, 35, has built a successful mini-career making films based on the unlikely combination of terrorism and comedy. “I call it a ‘terrordy’,” she explains. “I feel like I’ve created a new genre of film.” Hoping to be a sort of “Muslim Woody Allen”, Zarqa focuses on the eventful lives of Muslims in North America and pulls no punches – or punch lines. Her first short film, “BBQ Muslims,” was made in the wake of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Two Muslim brothers whose backyard barbecue explodes end up in the headlines as terrorist suspects. “This bombing has all the markings of Islamic fundamentalists: a large hole in the ground, charred grass and dead animals,” says the announcer on the local radio. “What else could you ask for?” Her second film, “Death Threat“, features a young Muslim woman writer whose pulp-fiction novel has been rejected fifty-nine times. Desparate to find a publisher, she concocts a fake death threat in order to generate a Salman-Rushdie style controversy (thinking it will make her popular) only to find her tactics backfiring on her. “I think people are surprised that someone would make a comedy [about such serious issues],” says Nawaz, who has also been a regular commentator on CBC News and an active participant in interfaith and community dialogue since the 9/11 attacks. Now that her short films have found a margin of success in various North American film festivals, Zarqa is focusing on her next project – a feature film entitled “Real Terrorists Don’t Bellydance,” which makes light of the struggle between Muslims and filmmakers who make stereotype-laden films. Ironically, some Muslims feel Zarqa’s films are stereotype-laden, but she shrugs it off. “I would rather see a goofy, silly Muslim on film which is essentially harmless,” she explains, “than a Muslim playing competent wife abuser.”

Shahed Amanullah is editor-in-chief of altmuslim.com.