Filmmaker Statement

The night that I first got the idea for this script, I poured through my old journals in my childhood bedroom. All my middle school malaise came back to me and I began crafting a story based on a visceral feeling of loneliness that I knew all too well. I began writing about a young girl looking for a friend. Growing up as a child of Brown, Muslim immigrants in the Michigan suburbs was a constant battle to try and understand where I fit in. I desperately wanted to be like the White American girls around me. They didn’t seem to have to carry the weight of conformity. AmeriGirl is rooted in this experience. When we have been taught that in order to be loved, we must be someone that we are not, how do we learn to be ourselves? Aaliyah’s journey is awkward and messy. She is an extension of my childhood journal entries. This is a film whose heart and soul lies in early adolescence – a time that is brutal in its own wonderful way.