Through words left unsaid to her late mother, director Samaher Alqadi’s next journey is unknown.
That is, until filming collides with a massive outpouring of enraged women filling the streets in response to an escalation of sexual assaults that take place in Tahrir Square on the second anniversary of the revolution. Alqadi utilizes her camera as a form of protection and begins documenting the growing women’s rebellion, not knowing where the story will lead her. When Alqadi becomes pregnant
during filming, she begins to re-examine the societal constructs of her own childhood in Palestine and what it means to be a woman and a mother in the Middle East. As I Want is a crucial, hard-hitting political commentary and an inward journey in which individual emancipation is linked to the collective process of liberation in the Arab world.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION: Q&A
Watch a pre-recorded Q&A with the director of As I Want, Samaher Alqadi and the director of
We Have Not Come Here to Die, Deepa Dhanraj. Conversation moderated by filmmaker and film
programmer Aisha Jamal and available at the same link as the film.

Keywords: Assault | Motherhood | Protest | Revolution | Violence Against Women