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A weird character in The White Lotus that just happens to be Muslim, and their religion isn’t the only interesting thing about them — that’s filmmaker Aizzah Fatima’s idea of good Muslim representation in Hollywood.

A few years into working as an ads engineer at Google, Fatima wanted to tap into her creativity, so she enrolled in an improv class at New York University and later graduated from the conservatory at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts — all while working a full-time tech job. It was at a solo-show writing class with Matt Hoverman that she began developing the characters who came to life in Americanish, her feature film initially released in 2023 and set to debut in Pakistan on Friday.

Written, produced by, and starring Fatima, and directed by Iman Zawahry, the film premiered in the US in 2021 and was picked up by Sony International two years later. The story revolves around the lives of career-driven sisters Maryam and Sam Khan, and their newly immigrated cousin Ameera, in Jackson Heights, Queens, as they navigate the ups and downs of romance, culture, work, and family.

Besides Fatima, Americanish stars Salena Qureshi as Maryam Khan, Shenaz Treasury as Ameera, Lillete Dubey, Mo Amer, Ajay Naidu, Godfrey, Kapil Talwalkar, George Wendt and David Rasche. Amer, a Palestinian-American stand-up comedian and actor, is known for his Netflix comedy show Mo Amer: The Vagabond.

Where did it begin?

“So this started as a one-woman show that I did many years ago, Dirty Paki Lingerie,” Fatima told Images. “Six Muslim characters, all female, ranging from a six-year-old girl to a 65-year-old lady.”

The solo play was born of Fatima’s desire to portray Pakistani Muslims unlike what she typically saw. The show was performed in New York City, Toronto, Italy, Turkmenistan, and Pakistan, where it toured four cities under the US State Department’s cultural programme. It also toured 15 cities across the United Kingdom and universities across America.

The playwright was doing a show at a theatre in New York City when Zawahry came to see it. “She said, ‘Hey, do you ever think about turning this into a film, like a feature?’ And I was like, actually, I was thinking about it,” Fatima recalled.

After returning from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, one of the world’s largest performance arts festivals based in Scotland, the Dirty Paki Lingerie actor started questioning if her work made a broad impact despite its apparent success. “We sold out at shows, we got great reviews, but I was performing in a room of 65 people. And I was like, we haven’t reached enough people with the message,” she said.

If you want to reach a wider audience in America, it’s usually through film or music, according to Fatima. “Those are mass produced and exported to the rest of the world; so all of that came together.”

Funding and challenges

The actor and writer recalled initial fundraising struggles she faced and said it was hard to get her community on board with her ideas. “But art can change hearts and minds.”

Talking about the state of Muslim representation in Western media, Fatima said even though things have improved, there’s still a focus on stereotypes of a woman in a hijab who takes it off in the name of Western feminism. “And that’s not real because often the people who write these stories are not Muslim. It’s shifted just a little bit, but it needs to shift so much more,” she said. While men have had better opportunities, there’s still a need for Muslim female-led shows in America, according to her.

British-Pakistani actor Riz Ahmad and other activists have previously campaigned against ‘toxic’ portrayals of Muslims in the popular film industry and it seems like things are changing.

In 2022, Disney+ miniseries Ms. Marvel featured Pakistani-American teen Kamala Khan, the first Muslim superhero to headline her own comic. For a lot of young Pakistani women, this kind of representation broke stereotypes about their depictions on the screen. American comedy series Deli Boys with its subtle cultural references that don’t feel like a forceful attempts at inclusivity also shows how Pakistani stories are evolving to reflect more authentic experiences rather than relying on tired tropes.

Fatima’s proudest moment concerning Americanish was when people who don’t come from a similar cultural background told her they resonated with the film. “People from other walks of life who feel represented by this very specific group of people,” she said, adding that her characters and their experiences are universal. “We all want to fall in love, all our parents want us to get married, we all want to go to a good school and excel at life.”