a slow wintry month
sundance, books, and bearing the world.
A friend told me recently she’s stopped working against the seasons. In the wintry months, she rests and recharges. She takes things in. She leaves the going out and the adventures for the warmer months, not forcing her body to bear the cold more than it has to. This January, I tried to do mainly this.
I started the New Year off in Michigan with my family. I spent nearly a month there, including the holidays, and when it came time for my flight, I pushed it back another week. I wanted to keep eating dinner with my parents. Afterwords trying to convince my mom to forego her Pakistani dramas and join us for our Amreekan movies. I didn’t want to go back to the independence I once craved so deeply.
Last Dance in Park City
I’ve been blessed to have been able to attend Sundance three times, my third time being the last year the festival will take place in Park City, Utah. In January 2027, the festival will move to Boulder, Colorado.
My first two years attending the festival, I marveled at this place. I was in cohorts that bonded deeply, and many of those people will, without a doubt, be lifelong friends. We’d sneak into parties, tell lies to get into houses we weren’t supposed to be in, race to grab tickets to movies that received long standing ovations. One late night last year, we attempted to order burger king that simply never came, falling asleep by the fireplace at the Sheraton, the festival’s headquarters, while discussing the latest celebrity gossip. This year, without a cohort, it was a little less joyful. But it was still lovely to run into old friends and colleagues.
I haven’t been to any other major festivals, but for me, Sundance always seems to set the tone for independent film for the rest of the year. I watch as films I either saw or heard whispers about at the festival slowly get distribution, most often in the second half of the year.
There’s also such a warm energy at the festival. Everyone is elated to just be there. To celebrate and commiserate. Premieres are my favorite. Cast and crew cheering. Years of work finally coming to fruition. It’s a miracle when an independent film gets made. Everything went wrong; I’m not sure how I’m here right now; We finished the film four days ago. These are common things directors will say during Q&As.
The festival usually prompts some level of insecurity but it’s also quite healing. It’s a space where people’s success is both terrifying and inspiring. You hear of those who didn’t get in. Or worse, those who got in but whose film didn’t sell despite such a positive reception. During a particularly dizzying spiral one night, Akram reassures me in the way only a dear, dear friend, one who truly believes in you and your work, can.
I went to the premiere of BAIT, a TV show I worked on in 2024 when I lived in LA for four months. These were some of the happiest months of my life, despite my indifference towards LA as a place. The show comes out on March 25 on Prime, and I hope you all watch it. I’m incredibly proud of the show — it turned out amazing.
I don’t usually see many films while at the festival, opting to meet people and go to events instead. But on my second to last day, a friend convinced me to see Who Killed Alex Odeh? The film received a long standing ovation, and another one when they brought out Alex Odeh’s family. I’m so glad we’re all still human and alive, Samia said to me as we both wiped away tears.
I also saw Cookie Queens, a documentary that follows four girls as they set out to sell Girl Scout cookies. I went to see it alone at 9 AM, completely enthralled by the logline. And without exaggeration, I cried throughout the entire film. Yes it is the cutest film I have seen in my life — one of the girls is so adorable that simply seeing her face brought tears to my eyes — but it also reminded me deeply of my own childhood. My dad signed me up for Girl Scouts so I’d learn leadership skills, but hilariously enough, I would rope him into selling cookies on my behalf. I was far too shy to approach anyone and selling cookies to strangers felt like going to war, so my dad would take the cookie sheet to his office every week during cookie season. I’d be giddy when he would come home with the orders.
So many memories from those years — always, always forgetting to bring two dollars to the meetings for dues (the girls would glare at me, how could you forget…AGAIN?), working on designing pins to trade with other troops before camp (mine ended up being quite ugly), leaving Girl Scouts right before middle school when it felt like most of the girls had decided to move on. I’d see them in the school halls, but we didn’t speak to each other. I always wondered why.
As someone who is writing a film that takes place in a Girl Scout-esque camp, I often feel that people view girlhood as trivial, or that this script in particular is not taken as seriously as those that tackle more “adult” themes. But seeing this documentary strengthened my resolve. You won’t be cute forever, one girls’ mother tells her. I wonder how it feels to hear something like this. And then a flash of memory from when I was a girl. An adult who kept calling me cute while I wanted to scream.
Romance Novels
Never in my life did I think I would be someone who enjoys romance novels. I usually opt for darker/more dramatic stories, despite being a hopeless romantic myself. But this past month, I tore through four Emily Henry audiobooks. I’ve been told this means one is not doing well. In the deep blues of NYC winter, few people are.
I’d listen on my walks to the local coffee shop, while I stirred noodles on the stove, while I separated the laundry that had piled up over the days. Every night I’d listen to them until I’d feel my eyes weakening. Some mornings I’d realize I fell asleep before I could pause the story, and the audiobook had reached its end. It felt wonderful to let in these love stories, these tropes that I ended up being such a sucker for. I sank into her storytelling, into her characters who didn’t ever feel that far from myself.1
The Lucky Ones & Other Reads
The Lucky Ones is a book I had to put down last year because it was too difficult to get through. I picked it up again at the start of this year. Zara Chowdhary writes about living through the Gujarat Pogroms, when violent mobs descended on Gujarat’s Muslims in 2002, gruesomely killing over 2,000 people. The violent murders were overseen and sanctioned by Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat, who is now the Prime Minister of the country.
I read about Bilkis Bano, a name that reverberated in my home and on social media during Shaheen Bagh, a movement in New Delhi led by Muslim women to protest the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) in 2019, a law that would require a national citizenship registry, threatening to render India’s Muslims stateless.
But I soon found out that this is not the same Bilkis whose case was followed closely by the Indian media for so many years after the pogroms. The Bilkis in the book is a woman who has been through one of the most horrifying ordeals I can ever imagine, something that I cannot even bring myself to type here. I looked up her face. I stared at the photo for a long time.
I looked up the other Bilkis Bano, known as the “Dadi” or “Grandmother” of Shaheen Bagh.
At this time, a book like this is oddly comforting. Our world is rich in the tradition of virulent hate. It comes in more colors and forms than most of us know. It has existed for eons. My uncle has chosen to send his kids to Canada out of fear of rampant anti-Muslim sentiment/violence growing in India. And my parents have seen far worse in India than they have ever seen in the U.S., so much so that they are largely unfazed by our descent into authoritarianism. Every empire must fall, my dad says constantly, shaking his head before returning to his book.
I’m also halfway through Lonely Crowds by Stephanie Wambugu, but have yet to finish. It reminds me so much of Elena Ferrante’s writing — her ability to get in the mind of a young girl. The way we thought at that age. All that we didn’t understand. Our fascination with other girls around us and how we could be more like them.
Other Tid Bits
-I thrift a jacket for $15 and find out that the original price is $750. It’s from some fancy SoHo store. One of the many reasons I adore thrifting in Brooklyn.
-Some dear friends, Shruthi and Raghav, come to visit NYC. Shruthi shows me her mini Kodak camera which I am supremely jealous of.
-Sam makes a blueberry lemon biscoff cheesecake for our movie night (an original flavor pairing conceived by our friend Shaili).
-Sam and I discuss the state of the world on mornings when we accidentally doomscroll too much. I never thought it would get this bad. Nothing seems like an exaggeration anymore. You know, the professors who study fascism have already fled? Are we idiots for staying? Should we leave? Where do we go? This doesn’t feel like our fight. But whose fight is it? What about the people who can’t afford to up and leave? I exchange text messages with a friend in the same screenwriting program as me. It all feels so frivolous, trying to work on this while gestapo is in the streets.
-A pistachio mocha from our local coffee shop owned by Reya, who’s become a friend over the past few months. She’s an illustrator and the walls of the coffee shop are filled with paintings made by local artists. She tells me about an artist that was commissioned by a customer who saw her work on the walls and wanted it for her office, how happy she was to see this artist get the recognition she deserves.
-I go to the New York DMV for the first time in my life (Michigan won’t stop calling me for jury duty and the only proof they’ll consider to excuse me is a New York ID). I’ve heard this special pilgrimage means I’m officially a New Yorker.
-I think we have a ghost in the apartment, and it’s trying to kill us. The stove randomly turns on! And we are stove triple checkers.
-Watched many, many movies this month.
Hope you all are resting and doing okay <3
My Emily Henry rankings (I have yet to read People We Meet on Vacation).
Funny Story
Happy Place
Book Lovers
Beach Read
Loved reading this betoo! I am surprised you had nothing to say about the new mayor.