Arab-Canadian filmmaker's Calgary movie focuses on immigrant identity

An Arab-Canadian filmmaker who grew up north of Cochrane, Alta., says he hopes his new short film shines a light on immigrants and the struggles they can face around identity.

Majid Koudmani's film, He Would Say, is available to stream on CBC Gem and was shot in and around Calgary.

The filmmaker, who splits his time between L.A. and Canada, is a first generation Canadian. His dad came to Canada from Syria, and the film was partly inspired by their story and the stories of other immigrants.

"The idea really just came from wanting to communicate what it was like to be in a new country, and it evolved into telling the story from the perspective of two different characters," said Koudmani.

His film uses the story of a young immigrant struggling to reconcile his identity between his new home and his heritage following his father's death.

"It's huge and it manifests in a couple of ways," he said, referring to newcomers wrestling with identity.

"At times, it can feel like if you're adopting a new home and you're giving up your old one — and that can be confusing and almost feels like you're betraying people that you've left behind," he said.

Koudmani says that for first generation kids, it can also be bewildering, having been told so much about the importance of where their parents and family are from but having never lived there and not calling it home.

"Sometimes it feels confusing as to where you're from and who you are," he said.

Koudmani says the biggest challenge of producing the short film was finding Arab actors in Canada to star in it.

"It proved to be a lot more difficult than we thought it would be," he said. "We couldn't find what we were looking for in Calgary, and luckily enough we were able to get the money to look in places where the Arab community is more established, in Toronto and Montreal, and fly in some actors," he said.

Koudmani says the encouraging part was finding lots of talented young Arab actors in Canada who will fill roles in the future.

The project was funded in part by a grant from the provincial government with the rest being self-funded. 

"Hopefully it will communicate struggles immigrants might go through and to communicate to people going through those struggles that they're not alone in that and that it's normal to feel conflicted."

The film is available now for free on the CBC Gem streaming app.