LIFELINE

I am a filmmaker, writer, educator and community organizer driven by a deep commitment to telling stories that amplify underrepresented voices. My perspective is shaped by my family’s migration journey and our experience resettling in Canada, which has profoundly influenced the stories I’m drawn to and how I approach them.

Over the past 15 years, I have worked alongside refugee, Muslim, and Black communities, communities I'm a part of, across Metro Vancouver through community organizing, youth work, and advocacy. These experiences have deeply shaped my approach to storytelling and reinforced my belief in its power to challenge the often one-dimensional ways our communities are represented on screen. I’m drawn to characters who are complex, joyful, flawed, funny, and fully human, and to stories that explore identity, belonging, justice, and the ways communities care for one another when systems fall short.

Lifeline grew directly from this intersection of my filmmaking and community work. I wrote this script in 2014, inspired by my time working as a youth worker, and the immense joy I experienced witnessing the youth from my community dream big and center hope in all they did. At its heart, this film is about the power of community: what happens when we choose to show up for one another, and how belonging can become a lifeline in itself. While the film engages with some of the difficult realities facing Black and Muslim youth, I wanted it to resist defining its characters solely through struggle. Instead, Lifeline centers friendship, humour, care, resilience, and the everyday moments of joy that make our communities whole.