Short film premieres March 20th at 12AM CST.

A Black woman develops a connection to an Arab man who works in a bodega, in the midst of a tragedy.

Originally conceived as a short story, "Noor" has undergone several revisions towards its current iteration as a high-stakes, timely romance with subtle commentary on human rights and cross-cultural resistance to authority. The feature script for "Noor" (which the short proof of concept is based on) is 15 years in the making. The writer, Nijla Mu’min, was one of 10 writers selected for the 2014 Sundance Institute’s Screenwriters Intensive for this script, where she had the opportunity to take part in a generative writing workshop and receive feedback from Sundance Advisors. She also won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Screenplay at the 2014 Urbanworld Film Festival, presented by BET, where she directed an excerpt of the script with actors, to a very warm reception. The script was also chosen for the 2021 Black List- Muslim List, and Nijla recently presented a table read of the short script at Blackstar Film Festival’s William and Louise Greaves Seminar at Stanford University in 2025.

Nijla Mu'min - Writer/Director, Avril Z. Speaks - Producer, Mariscela Beatríz Méndez - Director of Photography, Collin Kriner - Editor