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Please be advised: the Museum is open April 22–26, 12:00–6:00, for NYC Public Schools’ spring recess. See all hours.

Infinite Beauty: Muslim and MENASA Identity Onscreen

Ongoing

The term “MENASA” (Middle East, North African, and South Asian) encompasses a wide diversity of cultures, loosely linked by the idea that the people of these regions are perceived as practicing or having a significant proximity to the practice of Islam. Yet the films exploring this identity that reach audiences in the West are too often limited in depth and range, relying on—and reifying—centuries-old narratives that exoticize, or are solely interested, in Muslim and Arab people as the victims or perpetrators of extremism and violence. Audiences have been underestimated for far too long, and deserve a taste of all the humor, heartbreak, nuance, and insight that films from Muslim cultures have brought to cinema. MENASA people deserve to see complex and realistic depictions of their communities celebrated—rather than work that others and divides.

Islamic teaching places a persistent emphasis on opening one’s eyes to the beauty in the world, to the infinite array of life that earth miraculously contains. A discussion of when and how an outsider’s lens can illuminate has never been more critical, and while not every film in this screening series is directed by a MENASA person, they all center MENASA identity and perspective. In this series, the Museum screens films that reflect the shared values and experiences across these regions even as they honor the specificity of the lands in which they are placed, whether Iran, Bangladesh, Mauritania, or the U.S.

Guest programmer: Farihah Zaman.

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Upcoming Events in Series

An image that looks like slightly degraded video from the eighties or nineties in which a woman holds a camcorder to her eye and aims toward the screen.

Three Promises

Past Films in Series

Two women wearing hajibs hug each other while standing on a rooftop, in front of a triangular window, through which we can see a vast mountainous landscape at dusk.

Q
An animated image of a young boy with a white hat holding a bag strap over his shoulder

The Breadwinner
A woman helps another woman put on a black hijab.

Four Daughters

Mayor
In a green backyard, three generations of women, one in the foreground standing to the side, one in the middle picking fruit from a tree on a ladder, and another sitting in the background by a walker

Joonam
A woman holding a baby in one hand sits before an open fire cooking chicken in a rural African village

Two by Safi Faye
closeup on the face of a young white woman with a shaved head. Her hands frame her face.

Nothing Compares
A young girl kneels by her bed and looks up at a photo of David Beckham, with images of soccer players all over her wall

Bend It Like Beckham
closeup on the face of a young white woman with a shaved head. Her hands frame her face.

Nothing Compares
two young girls run through verdant green tall grasses towards the camera

Brick Lane
Two men stand by a ladder outside a shop, one in a white hat with paint smudge on his face

My Beautiful Laundrette
Two men stand by a ladder outside a shop, one in a white hat with paint smudge on his face

My Beautiful Laundrette
two young girls run through verdant green tall grasses towards the camera

Brick Lane
A young girl kneels by her bed and looks up at a photo of David Beckham, with images of soccer players all over her wall

Bend It Like Beckham
A man on a motorcycle rides across a bridge carrying a large cardboard cutout of a woman dressed in pink

Joyland
A man on a motorcycle rides across a bridge carrying a large cardboard cutout of a woman dressed in pink

Joyland
A man on a motorcycle rides across a bridge carrying a large cardboard cutout of a woman dressed in pink

Joyland
A man on a motorcycle rides across a bridge carrying a large cardboard cutout of a woman dressed in pink

Joyland
A man on a motorcycle rides across a bridge carrying a large cardboard cutout of a woman dressed in pink

Joyland
A man on a motorcycle rides across a bridge carrying a large cardboard cutout of a woman dressed in pink

Joyland
Two women hold their hands out to each other sitting in a bathtub, seen from overhead.

MENASA Pride Month Shorts Showcase
Two men in a kitchen, one sitting in front of an island, the other standing over the island, his head under a ceiling lamp

Breaking Fast
Two men in a kitchen, one sitting in front of an island, the other standing over the island, his head under a ceiling lamp

Breaking Fast
An image of a man with his hands over his ears with images of clouds reflected on his head facing an identical man facing him

Miguel’s War
A woman in a hijab looks at the camera in closeup and touches her face

Play of Glances: Three Works by Maryam Tafakory
Two people silhouetted in dark nighttime street

No Bears
A silhouette of a man and two birds against a netting and blue, smoggy sky

All That Breathes
A woman plays guitar, her mass of black hair blown upwards

Sirens
A woman in a white dress and hijab in profile holds a candle in a long hallway with others walking past her

An Act of Worship

Mayor