I first got wind of Asil Moussa from an article on CBC about this hijabi actress making waves and her aspirations. She strives to write female, Muslim, and marginalized peoples’ narratives that showcase their stories authentically. Her short film THE CARD is available on CBC.
How we perceive our fellow human beings can be shaped by bias. In The Card, director Asil Moussa shows how forgetting our humanity can affect everyone.
At a café, a kind gesture is mistaken for attempted theft. A businesswoman (Bridget Opfer) who is busy and oblivious to the world around her loses her credit card and immediately thinks a Muslim woman (Moussa) is the culprit. In this short film, prejudice, assumptions, and visual cues contribute to this white businesswoman and her internalized judgements about her surroundings. She assumes the person who is different must want to infringe on her rights and take what she has as a middle-class white woman.
Windsor, Ontario-based Moussa, directed, produced and co-stars in the short. The Card was selected for season 12 of CBC’s Short Film Face Off, a series where short films from across Canada compete for a production deal and money towards the filmmaker’s next project. She gives us two perspectives of the event in the story, shaping the narrative to show how point of view and life experiences can either isolate or bring people together.Moussa focuses on women of colour in front of and behind the camera in situations that will encourage dialogue and acceptance.
