Queer Love on Screen

Directed by a Queer Woman 🎬💙

Why I Tell These Stories

Every time I step behind a camera, I’m telling the story I never saw growing up.

Queer. Brown. Female. Political. Tender.

Stories that didn’t exist for people like me—not on big screens, not in textbooks, and certainly not in love stories with happy endings. So I started writing them. Then I directed them. And I never looked back.

When I first filmed I Can’t Think Straight, I wasn’t sure anyone outside London (because it was set there), or maybe Middle Eastern or Indian communities, would connect with Tala and Leyla’s story. It was our first film, written, directed, and produced by me and by Hanan - the first outing for both of us as director and producer respectively. Were we ready for the experience? Absolutely not. But the opportunity came up, and we grasped it with both hands.

We shot it in around 20 days, but they were scattered and a bit crazed. The process that turned into much more than a regular film school when we battled an ‘investor’ who was getting us thrown out of locations, and days that were randomly chopped from the schedule. We somehow got through it, stressed and sleep-deprived, thanks to incredible help from Aseem Bajaj, our cinematographer and some key crew, and of course our amazing cast led by Lisa Ray and Sheetal Sheth. An experience like that forged a family relationship between all of us that endures to this day.

Then came a chase through the British courts to get back control of the film negative, and a mammoth job to recreate all of the dialogue and sound in the movie - as our so-called ‘investor’ tried to hold the soundtrack tape to ransom. He picked the wrong target for blackmail. Hanan moved heaven and earth to dub the film rather than cave to that demand…Was it all worth it?

Well, I’ll never forget our screening at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco—1,500 people, a rising organ, and an audience cheering their own reflection on screen.

Frameline Film Festival in San Francisco for a sold out screening at the historic Castro theater.

That moment affirmed something I’d always felt: queer stories told by queer creators carry a different kind of truth. A quieter, deeper resonance.

And if you’ve ever felt like your story didn’t belong, this is why I did it. Not just to tell my truth, which is the starting point for any storyteller, in my opinion. But to make space for yours.