IFFBoston Screening Series
Towelhead
Directed by: Alan Ball
Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Toni Collette, Maria Bello, Peter Macdissi and Summer Bishil
Based on the novel by Alicia Erian
Thursday, August 21 - 7pm
Coolidge Corner Theatre - 290 Harvard St, Brookline
Director Alan Ball will appear in person for a Q&A
TOWELHEAD follows the dark, bold and sometimes shockingly funny life of Jasira, a 13-year-old Arab- American girl, as she navigates the confusing and frightening path of adolescence and her own sexual awakening.
When Jasira’s mother exiles her to live with her strict Lebanese father in Houston, she quickly learns that her new neighbors find her and her father odd and exotic. Worse, her budding womanhood makes her traditional and hot-tempered father uncomfortable.
Lonely in this unfamiliar environment, Jasira seeks to connect with those around her and finds both comfort and cruelty. Discovering that her ethnicity and newfound sexuality make her a target, Jasira must confront racism and hypocrisy both at home and at school. Jasira is drawn to her Army reservist neighbor, Mr. Vuoso, who captivates her attention with his stacks of men’s magazines and confusing sweet talk. As she struggles to make sense of her raging hormones, she finds friendship and physical intimacy with an older schoolmate, Thomas. But even that relationship causes problems when her father discovers that Thomas is black.
Driven by a deep longing for affection and acceptance, Jasira becomes the embodiment of the racial, sexual and political agendas of these very different men in her life—her father with his old world ideas of women; her dangerously alluring neighbor, Mr. Vuoso, and Thomas, who offers the promise of some feeling of connection through sex.
When Melina, a concerned neighbor and expectant mother, tries to help her, Jasira’s explosive situation comes to a head. A harrowing look at the confusion and misguided exploration of youth in America’s track houses, public schools and suburban wastelands, Jasira wanders through this world and surprises herself by finding not only a gutsy resilience but a new sense of redemptive power.
