Coming Around

Sandra Itäinen’s debut feature challenges conventional coming out narratives as well as the false dichotomy of liberal tolerance and religious faith with its iconoclastic protagonist, Eman Abdelhadi, a queer PhD student in Sociology whose academic research on the intersection of gender and sexuality in American Muslim communities reflects her own life experience. Up to this point, Eman and her mother Fatten have had a warm relationship, though it seems Eman painstakingly contextualizes queerness to her mother in the abstract rather than foregrounding her own sexuality. The balance of this détente threatens to collapse when Eman’s relationship with a cis man becomes more serious and she feels internal and external pressure to have an Islamic wedding before they move in together. Will a heterosexual marriage undo all of Eman’s hard work in making Fatten see her queerness or is it actually an authentic expression of her fluidity? (Outfest Los Angeles)