Saturday, September 30 at 12:30pm | The Main Cinema
Post-screening discussion with documentary subject Eman Abdelhai (University of Chicago) in conversation with Mohammed Bamyeh (University of Pittsburgh).
About Coming Around
Dir. Sandra Itäinen | 2023 | USA | English and Arabic with English subtitles | 75 min
A queer Muslim woman grapples with the decision to come out to her devout, psychiatrist mother and ends up marrying her male partner to evade her mother’s silent disapproval, pacing between the tensions of appeasement and autonomy.
Director’s Bio
Sandra Itäinen is a Finnish film director, producer, and editor based in New York City. Sandra’s directorial feature debut COMING AROUND premiered at Thessaloniki 2023, nominated for the Golden Alexander in the Newcomers Competition. Documentary editing credits include TOMBOY (SXSW, 2020) and award-winning KELET (DocPoint, 2020). In 2021, she directed the short documentary series NOITAPIIRIT (eng. COVENS) to critical acclaim for Finnish YLE. Sandra’s first documentary short THE WEAVEOLOGIST (2016) screened at multiple film festivals, among others DOC NYC. She is the associate producer of DARK MONEY (dir. Kimberly Reed) which premiered at Sundance 2018, nominated for Best Documentary Feature. Before moving into film, Sandra worked as a journalist for Finnish YLE. She works to amplify women’s voices through filmmaking and focuses mainly on themes revolving around identity, power dynamics and family, through a millennial lens.
About the Speakers
Eman Abdelhadi is an academic, activist and writer who thinks at the intersection of gender, sexuality, religion and politics. She is co-author of Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072, a sci-fi novel published in 2022 with Common Notions Press. Her academic work has been published in numerous sociology journals and covered by press outlets such as the Washington Post, Associated Press, and NPR. Abdelhadi received her PhD in Sociology in 2019 and is currently an assistant professor at the University of Chicago.
Mohammed A. Bamyeh is Professor of Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh. He was the lead author of Social Sciences in the Arab World (2015). His other books include The Social Origins of Islam; Intellectuals and Civil Society in the Middle East; Anarchy as Order; The Ends of Globalization; and Of Death and Dominion; in addition to a few edited volumes. Previously he served as the editor of International Sociology Reviews and is currently President of the Board of Trustees of the Arab Council for the Social Sciences (ACSS).
Presented by Mizna
Mizna is a critical platform for contemporary literature, film, art, and cultural production centering the work of Arab and Southwest Asian and North African artists. For more than twenty years, we have been creating a decolonized cultural space to reflect the expansiveness of our community and to foster exchange, examine ideas, and engage audiences in meaningful art.