Muslim List: MPAC Hollywood & The Black List Reveal Scribes Selected For 2024 Edition
EXCLUSIVE: A diverse array of voices and genres, ranging from singular horror stories, to topical thrillers to social realist dramas, highlight the 2024 Muslim List. MPAC Hollywood Bureau and The Black List have selected 10 scripts for this year’s list, highlighting the very best work from Muslim writers. Launched in 2020, this is the third edition of the list.
“We are deeply grateful to the entire team at The Black List for their unwavering support and commitment to projects that foster dialogue and drive societal change. In a time where the national and global discourse is grappling with issues of division, identity, and the rise of hate-fueled violence, these projects bring forward hopeful and thought-provoking perspectives,” said Sue Obeidi, Senior Vice President, MPAC Hollywood Bureau. “Alongside The Black List, we are proud to announce the winners of the 2024 Muslim List. Congratulations to these inspiring Muslim storytellers for their dedication to resisting erasure and rising to the moment of unprecedented times we are and will be living in.”
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The ten features and pilots are included on the 2024 Muslim List, which aims to amplify the depth and range of voices and perspectives of Muslim scribes and storytellers on both the big and small screen.
“It has been a real joy over the past few years to celebrate great writing from and about the Muslim community with MPAC, and this year is of course no different,” said Black List founder Franklin Leonard. “I encourage everyone to read these scripts, and get to know these writers. You won’t regret it.”
Several writers on this year’s Muslim List have received additional industry accolades for their work.
Faisal Azam’s short film Salar won Best Dramatic Short at the Austin Film Festival and was shortlisted for an Academy Award; Azam has also worked with National Geographic, HBO, Sports Illustrated, and The New York Times. Rusteen Honardoost is the script coordinator on Emmy and Peabody Award-winning series Stillwater for Apple TV+. Samah Meghjee is a current participant in the Geffen Writers’ Room; her project Quran Camp was also featured on the 2024 GLAAD List and the MUBI/WScripted’s Cannes Screenplay List. Farzin Farzam has had projects excel at the Atlanta Film Festival, the Austin Film Festival, and Stowe Story Labs. Nicole Ballivian’s Sleeping On Stones was selected for the Sundance-RAWI Screenwriters Lab in Jordan. Yossera Bouchita received the Alfred P. Sloan Production Grant for her short film Into The Void.
Interested industry readers can request Muslim List projects directly from the Black List.
Here are the 10 scripts selected for the third Muslim List:
DHEGDHEER RETURNS – Miski Farah Ali & Ilyas Adiris (Feature)
A researcher heads to Somalia to collect samples of a mysterious meteorite that’s protected the locals from a terrifying spirit for centuries.
DO NOT COPY – Malik Malik & Mohamed Malik (Pilot)
In early 2000s New York City, a struggling filmmaker finds power and purpose in the criminal underworld of film piracy, before falling into a cat-and-mouse game with the FBI and studios hell-bent on stopping him.
DOWN & OUT IN TEHRANGELES – Rusteen Honardoost (Pilot)
A newly immigrated Iranian woman befriends a young, unhoused man living in the apartment next door and must hide his true identity from her self-obsessed family.
H8 – Faisal Azam & Erica Velis (Pilot)
When minority children start disappearing in a small Southern town, two exceptional FBI agents—one Black, one Pakistani-American—with colliding worldviews are called in to investigate. What they uncover reveals the heart of hatred in America and a vast, sinister conspiracy.
IMMIGRANTS – Mustafa Knight (Pilot)
Immigrants follows the misadventures of six unlikely friends through their trials and tribulations on what it really means to be American in America.
NURA – Karim Ahmad (Pilot)
In the year 2085, Nura is an elderly genius who lives in a radically advanced care facility that provides for her every need. But when her husband dies after a long struggle with dementia, Nura questions her life choices and craving new purpose, inadvertently summons a powerful cosmic force with a vital mission requiring Nura to venture across time, space, and parallel universes to save her own from an impending apocalypse.
QURAN CAMP – Samah Meghjee (Feature)
At a summer camp for Muslim tweens, shy and nerdy Tanveer doesn’t expect to find a crush – especially not one who’s her bunkmate.
SIMORGH – Farzin Farzam (Pilot)
In this two-hander, a grieving Iranian-American teen hacker decides to take revenge on the cop who murdered her mom while he is on a mission to hunt her down and kill her.
SLEEPING ON STONES – Nicole Ballivian (Feature)
Jacob, a 10-year old Jewish boy from New York, moves to the West Bank with his settler parents. To their dismay, Jacob’s best friends are Palestinian, and he comes of age under the occupation until turning 18, when he refuses to enlist into the Israeli military and is imprisoned.
YASMINE/JASMINE – Yossera Bouchtia (Feature)
After the sudden and mysterious death of her father, a grieving daughter starts to contend with haunting visitations from her doppelgänger and is forced to confront her mysterious past to reclaim a part of herself she never knew.
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