Once carefree, 17-year-old Summer (Zoe Renee, “The Quad”) finds herself struggling to cope when her mother Jade (Simone Missick, “Luke Cage”) converts to Islam. “Jinn” sees the pair failing to find common ground. In our exclusive clip of Nijla Mu’min’s feature debut, the two exchange harsh words after visiting a mosque.
“I have finally found something that makes me happy and you want to mock it instead of maybe learning something?” Jade asks.
Summer doesn’t hesitate to express her opinion: “Learning what?” she scoffs. “How to hide behind scarves and holy passages instead of saying you want to screw a man and finally be accepted for once?”
“Jinn” is inspired by Mu’min’s own upbringing in a largely African-American Muslim community in Oakland. “As I got older, I was introduced to pop culture, different forms of sexuality, Lil’ Kim rap tapes, daisy dukes, pressed hair, belly-out t-shirts,” she told us. “I became quite conflicted about how to define my identity as a black girl with a Muslim father and a spiritual, non-religious mother. I was a part of so many different cultural worlds and wanted to make them all fit. This film asks, can I be confused, and flawed, and full of desire, and still be a Muslim? Can I be all these things and still be loved?”
Asked what the best advice she’s been given is, the writer-director said, “One of my favorite filmmakers, Ava DuVernay, told me ‘Don’t rest on that one film. Always have something in the works.’ At that time, I did have a feature film script that I thought would be my first feature film. However, things didn’t go the way I planned, and I ended up writing and developing new projects, one of them being ‘Jinn.'”
Mu’min’s credits include an episode of DuVernay’s OWN drama “Queen Sugar” and shorts “Dream” and “Deluge.”
“Jinn” made its world premiere at SXSW, where it took home the Special Jury Award for writing. The film opens in theaters November 15 and hits VOD and Digital HD on November 16.
