PassesAccessibility
2026
Short Narrative(East Coast Premiere)

White Musk

A blue-toned film still from White Musk shows a cluttered vanity with an oval-shaped mirror. In the mirror, there’s a reflection of a woman facing right.

Loosely based on the filmmaker’s own experiences, White Musk explores the tension that arises when a child is forced to parent their own parent. When her mother, Suraya, falls gravely ill, 19-year-old Hiba becomes her primary caregiver, while her older brother Hisham moves through the household largely unburdened. We watch Hiba and Suraya love each other and wound each other in equal measure, locked in a push and pull that neither knows how to break. As Suraya’s condition worsens, Hiba must navigate what it means to care for someone who cannot easily receive care, and what it costs her to keep showing up anyway.

Screenings

Virtual

Availability BeginsThursday, August 612:00PM EDT

Directors Spotlight

Fatima Wardy

Director

Fatima Wardy is a Sudani writer-director, raised in the United Kingdom and currently based in Baltimore, Maryland. Her work focuses on mothers and motherlands: on matriarchal tethers as sites of becoming. She draws from her Nubian elders’ oral storytelling traditions to explore what a Sudanese cinematic gaze might look like (and at).

Year
2026
Runtime
18 minutes
Country
United States, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom
Language
Arabic, English
Director
Fatima Wardy
Screenwriter
Fatima Wardy
Producers
Mary-Elizabeth Esquibel, Reem Abnowf
Cast
Dana Mirghani, Nahid Abunama-Elgadi, Ayman AlAmeen, AlSarah, Saman Hasan
Cinematographer
Joey Hunt
Editor
Mdhamiri á Nkemi
Premiere
East Coast

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