Join us for a night of short films by two South Asian women filmmakers, Aisha Hamid and Ariella Khan. Their screenings will be followed by a live Q&A, where audiences will have the opportunity to ask questions and learn more about their creative processes and filmmaking journey. This program is running in conjunction with our permanent exhibition Of Women by Women: South Asian Feminist Art and Artists from the Hundal Collection, an exhibition which examines how South Asian women artists, both within the region and across the diaspora, navigate their creative identities in a world shaped by patriarchal structures and racial biases.
A Sneak Peek of Their Films
Ponytail
In this quietly observed, intimate film about a Pakistani family, a grieving daughter reconnects with her widowed father and discovers a life-altering truth about him. Subtly touching on themes of grief and depression, Ponytail captures the isolation we feel in loss, in mental and physical illness, and the many ways we show up for our family even when it is the hardest thing to do.
Converting
When Liam decides to convert to Islam in honor of his relationship with Iman, the couple must craft their identities both together and apart while juggling international sneaky links, cross-continental job offers, and many meals gone wrong.
About the Filmakers
Aisha Hamid
Aisha Hamid is a Pushcart-nominated writer, poet, playwright, and filmmaker from Lahore, Pakistan. She completed her MFA in Writing for the Screen and Stage from Northwestern University in 2025. As a Pritzker Pucker Studio Lab fellow 2024, she wrote, directed and produced her debut short film, Ponytail (2024), that won the New Waves Grand Award at the New York Indie Shorts Awards 2025 and marked her first foray into narrative filmmaking. Her stories explore neurodivergence, dysfunctional family dynamics, intergenerational trauma, and center the everyday lived experiences of brown women.
Aisha’s work spans across disciplines. Her poem Tying My Father’s Hair in a Ponytail was nominated for both Best New Poets 2024 and Best of the Net by Diode Magazine. Her short story Waste was longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2024 and her earlier story, How (Not) to Leave, was shortlisted for the Zeenat Haroon Rashid Writing Prize for Women in 2019. Her writing has appeared in Diode, Pleiades, Vallum, and other literary journals.
Ariella Khan
Ariella Khan is a writer and director raised between the Midwest of America and Karachi, Pakistan. With humor and love, her work grapples with her Pakistani-American identity, assimilation and intercultural relationships. Ariella lives and works between Chicago and Karachi and is currently in post-production on a horror-comedy short and is developing for her debut feature film.