In 2018, Abdul El-Sayed set out to be the Democratic candidate in Michigan’s gubernatorial race. As a young Muslim man and a political outsider — he is a doctor who ran Detroit’s health department — El-Sayed’s road to the primaries was a rocky one. Brittany Huckabee documents his journey, and the perils of running for office without a political party’s support, in “How to Fix a Primary.” A trailer for the film has dropped.
“Here’s a Muslim guy, 33 years old, he has an IQ of like 192, and every time he tries to do something, you know, doors get slammed in his face,” we’re told in the spot. The press runs racist stories questioning El-Sayed eligibility for office and the Democratic Party is backing his opponent, Gretchen Whitmer. (Whitmer recently made headlines when the FBI took down a militia plotting to kidnap her.)
Without the party’s support, it’s very hard for political candidates to raise their profiles enough to get elected. “[The Democratic Party] control the process, they control the media, they control the money, and it’s incredibly difficult to take them on,” one interviewee says. So El-Sayed tries to shore up support from two political outsiders who beat the odds and went the distance, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders.
“I have always believed that you’re never good enough. And the reason is the world will never let you be good enough when you look like me,” El-Sayed says. “And at some point you’re like, ‘Well, then, fuck ’em.'”
Huckabee previously directed docs “After Fire” and “The Mosque in Morgantown.” “Sexy Baby” and “Hot Girls Wanted” are among her producing credits.
“It’s important for women directors not to shy away from telling stories from a female perspective,” Huckabee told Women and Hollywood. “When I say that, I don’t mean with sentimentality or any other stereotypical approach. When enough of us step up and unabashedly tell stories through our own eyes, audiences will begin to get past the stereotypes and understand that there are many different ways of seeing the world as a woman.”
“How to Fix a Primary” will be released on VOD October 20.
