1700% Project: Mistaken for Muslim
2010 · 6m · USA
Directed by Anida Yoeu Ali
Genres: documentary, experimental
Tones: contemplative, provocative
Hate crime victims among American Muslims in Chicago inspired this collaborative project between artist, Anida Yoeu Ali, and filmmaker, Masahiro Sugano.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Ali weaponizes the archive and her own body as a confrontational text, turning mistaken identity into a six-minute interrogation of how brown skin gets read as threat—it's the kind of formally reckless, politically uncompromising work that makes comfortable festival audiences squirm, which means it's probably essential.
The film demonstrates sophisticated engagement with the essay-film tradition and documentary's claim to truth, using repetition and fragmentation to formally enact the violence of misrecognition rather than simply documenting it—a rigorous conceptual approach that positions Ali within a lineage of experimental documentary practice.
The decision to loop and layer Ali's own voice and image creates a disorienting, almost incantatory rhythm that forces the viewer into complicity with the act of watching/judging a brown body—one formal choice that transforms what could be a straightforward personal essay into something that works on you viscerally.
Reviews
A dramatic layering of portraits against racial profiling hopes to inspire unity. 1700% Project: Mistaken for Muslim was an official selection of the 2011 WVN Online Film Festival and was awarded in the Experimental category.