sherif

Please forgive me as I do this for the first time. My name is Sherif, and I'm a filmmaker, poet, writer, organizer and teacher. I was an organizer for over a decade, and came up organizing for Palestine and Black Lives Matter before it was called that, in 2011. I make art as an extension of my love for people and their capacity to individually and collectively change, and see my filmmaking as an extension of my poetry and storytelling. I aim to tell the truth to power, and capture life as I and those that I read or speak to see it. Cinema for me is a matter of baring the soul in order to close the distance between us all spiritually, it is to elevate our collective, social being. We need art to make wisdom out of information as Toni Morrison wrote. Art is a sacred trust, and I am grateful to have the chance at this point in my life to be able to take such risks, no matter how difficult, because I'd rather die than not make the films I must make. What is in my heart and what I create do not belong to me, but to you, and to Allah who I am a servant of, who may choose to use me as a vessel of truth, meaning both the beautiful and the ugly. And I don't mean aesthetically, I mean with respect to how we as human beings hurt or help one another. If you read this far, I pray you and yours are good, and thank you for the gift of your time. 📸 @oceanelyse 1) Hawaii during the @sundanceorg @islamicscholarshipfund @dorisdukefdn Building Bridges Retreat. 2) The sea, connected to all seas 3) A photo that required bodily contortion to capture. 4) The third time I directed, and the first time at columbia. 5) Writing beneath Ghassan Kanafani and Toni Morrison. 6) A photo I took in my neighborhood in Jersey. 7) Placing a keffiyeh on the columbia alma mater before I began my MFA here. 8/9) Protest photos back in 2022 in Brooklyn. 10) Slow motion of the Mediterranean between Tangier and europe. May all the displaced in the seas find peace and power.

Thank you @thegotham @deadline for the support

Grateful for this family formed thanks to @islamicscholarshipfund @sundanceorg @dorisdukefdn Alhamdulilah We are setting out to create a model for fellowship and building bridges. @cocos.sanctuary @anw_rahim @samina.saifee @asgharthegrouch @samiakhanbams I got your back 4ever

The program will feature: Daggit Gaza by Hadeel Assali, a Palestinian scholar and filmmaker paintings by Fatema Alhashemi, a fiction writer and painter poetry by renowned filmmaker, poet and novelist Fatimah Asghar, who most recently wrote on Ms. Marvel and wrote/directed the upcoming film Anatomy of a fuckboy a film by @cm.cly , recent winner of the Gotham Short Film Award and one of the producers of Destiny Poet and curator, Dylan Gilbert Renowned poet Safia Elhillo, who has performed internationally and received numerous awards for their writing. Samina Saifee, a filmmaker and great singer @djfatin will spin for us BYOB and ticket link in the bio!

Jabal Musa (Mount Sinai) What is it to hike the mountain that Moses is said to have climbed to receive The Ten Commandments? Growing up I loved the film The Prince of Egypt, and as I watch it now, I take inspiration and hope from it as a story, but I imagine Palestinians returning to their land in droves. I imagine thawra. I imagine dignity, beauty, and life. And I pray for it, and hope it surprises us like the way light touches the mountains and the clouds move before our eyes as we move through time with spirits that find inner noor to guide us on our paths in the midst of genocides that must end that the billionaire media will have us believe have ended already. Glory and love to the martyrs, to the oppressed, love to all justice and freedom loving people, and may we find a way together toward a new and different world and shape it collectively with our hearts, words, patience, imagination, and actions.

Hi everyone! We are hosting a party to fundraise for the film Destiny on December 20th at 8PM at the Mayday Space in Brooklyn. The event brings together poets, filmmakers, singers and artists for a night of music, solidarity, and cultural work that centers the energy and spirit of the film itself. Artists will share their work across mediums in a poetry-cinema event that aims to blend the arts as creative space and community making. Destiny is a spiritual science fiction film that aims to invert the typical sci-fi film's structure into one that invokes revolutionary Arab storytelling and image-making, and stars Adam Bakri. The film begins where films like the Matrix end - how do belief and the collective subconscious shape our world, and how can they be tuned to the frequency of transcendence and transformation? The film is itself a love letter to cinema, Palestine, and the ways in which we come to believe an idea or vision so deeply that it forces the world to accept radical change. The evening will bring together poets, filmmakers, painters and musicians to introduce the film to the broader New York community. If you cannot afford a ticket, please DM. Mayday Space is a historic NYC space that we aim to center and honor by hosting this event in the space. Please join us for a beautiful evening with friends, strangers and art that aims to heal and galvanize our hearts toward revolutionary transformation. Link in bio!

Here's a short story I wrote a few years ago I held onto about diaspora and coming home and the unknowns. Here's to sharing more. I'll be publishing a lot more fiction and poetry on Substack ahead of an announcement in the coming weeks I'm excited to share. This piece is more akin to flash fiction than short. Would love thoughts. You know where to find it. Enjoy.

Peace to old tears A poem from the sky delivered by birds for a new 3omda believer's words believer's verbs Muslim now where we was once terroristas say it with a smile now the city overcame what broke our hearts crushed our baby backs muslim child your city always loved you your people just couldn't see you through the mask they put on you with one hand as they killed your brother, with the other your beauty is as infinite as the space between heartbeats universe in your eyes as smoke rises you are the noor that lights new york with love from a broken heart in palestine, sudan, everywhere your smile stares back on the river's brow Alhamdulilah

I'm still a student at this soulless, decrepit institution that's suspended and expelled freedom-loving students I love, all in the name of defending and profiting from the z!onist genoside of Palestinians. But we stay in motion and keep pushing. One day even this institution will divest. Free my people, free P@lest ĩne, free the land, end the genos!de, open the borders, be brave, learn, ask questions. Notes to myself before anyone else. 📷 @kholoodeid #themessengers

This selfie is just for your attention. We are nearing the end of our fundraising for Anatomy of a Fuckboy, a comedic, cathartic, and healing mockumentary that delves into fuckboys of all kinds, genders and sexualities. If you've been hurt by one, or are one, this is for you to either heal, or atone - directed by @asgharthegrouch and produced by me, @true.akram @sarastates and @aneesatalks . We cannot make this film without our community! The link to donate and learn more is in my bio. Please share! We are also looking for a Driver for the film, shooting April 25-27 in Brooklyn. Paid. If that's you or someone you know, please email [email protected]! And if you want to be an extra in a fun scene or PA, also email!

On May 3, 2014, 400 Rutgers students broke the will of Condoleezza Rice days after breaking into their Pres. Barchi’s office in a sit-in, and one day after a mass Jummah 🤲 service of 400 Muslim students marched over to confront Barchi. Rice rescinded the invitation to be the commencement speaker that would have seen a war criminal awarded an honorary law degree (and $35k). Two young students, Sherif Ibrahim, a Muslim, and Shabbir Abbas, a Shia Muslim scholar-activist with Pakistani roots, helped lead and fund a coalition of Leftists and Muslims; Shabbir would push for @ericlegrand52 to replace Rice, as LeGrand was the star of the 2014 graduating class due “his determination to fight and live his way” after being paralyzed during a football game in 2010. Unable to make a “public event” out of the Apr 28 sit-in, Sherif relied on on-the-ground organizing, gathering 150 people, 50 of which would partake in the sit-in. One went on a recon mission “to use the bathroom” in the administrative building, and gave the go-ahead to enter, but a security guard saw the crowd and locked the door, prompting the student to let them in through a back door. Emma Scully, of Socialist Alternative, came up with the idea of an open mic to Pres Barchi. Sherif’s roommate John Lisowski, who would play Dead Kennedys songs on their rooftop at parties was lead-organizer for Students for Justice in Palestine and BDS, & helped give No Rice a strong punk/leftist contingent in solidarity with Muslims & Brown people, & gave one of several rousing speeches in this movement, raising his voice to be heard over the thundering cheers. The sit-in galvinized the whole movement. It was the birth of the campaign’s energy- out of it came large daily forums in whatever classroom they could find. Ideas were pitched, to be implemented the next day, with lots of creative energy in the air, from Jewish leftists like Ezra Shalom to queer Muslims to Verbal Mayhem poets collective President Shireen Hamza. Not since the anti-apartheid sit-ins had Rutgers students from different walks of life been so united and committed to direct action (post 1 of 2)

Thousands out here at Columbia for Palestine. They thought this would stop the students. Again, they're wrong. Join us.