An Original Documentary Film for American Public TV

PRODUCER’S CORNER

· What the producer says about “Women of Islam”

To me, what the mainstream television channels like CNN and Fox were showing regarding Muslim women and the burqua was outrageous. This started even before September 11, when the television and newspapers started focusing attention on Afghani women. They were shown to be “suffocating” in their burquas, a seemingly new phenomenon, a mobile prison for the women instituted by the Taliban. …and the worst part was that everyone was buying into this propaganda.

It is with these strong feelings that I decided to make the documentary “Women of Islam – Veiling and Seclusion”. As a Muslim woman, I knew what the reality was and I needed to bring it out.

Challenges in the making of “Women of Islam”

Making this documentary was like a roller coaster ride. There were ups and downs. As this was our first major production, it meant learning the basics of a long and complicated process. Researching, scripting, shooting, lighting, sound, editing…there were many things to learn and perform. We had to wear different hats for this project. Yet in some aspects we couldn’t have done it without help and encouragement from family, friends and industry people.

One of the most exciting aspects of this project was traveling across the globe and meeting all sorts of interesting people. The only way to show the complexity and diversity of the practice of veiling in Islam was to show different Muslim societies. While filming this documentary, we met Muslim women from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey and USA who talked about what veiling means to them and why they do or don’t cover in specific ways. Perhaps the most interesting places visited were the Afghan Refugee camps around the city of Peshawar (near Afghan border) right after the attack on Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban regime.