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

In 1964, at the age of 28, a queer dancer named Fred Herko jetéd out the window of his ex-lover’s apartment – naked, and high on speed. The Life and Death of Fred Herko is an interdisciplinary, site-specific performance that sheds light on a footnoted figure in queer history and examines the collateral damage of art.

Through striking sound design, movement and text the piece reimagines the dancer’s infamous last moments and seeks to find utopian potential in his tragic story.

The research and development of this piece has been generously supported by the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Suggested Dress Code: Party Glam

Director: Claire Burns
Writer: Natalie Liconti
Sound Design: Devon Bate
Lighting Design: Darah Miah
Production Management: Taylor Young
Set and Installation Design: James Knott
Stage Management: Kit Simmons
Irma Villafuerte: Choreographer
Performers: Oliver Price, Daniel Carter, Andrew Cheng and Sochi Fried
Special Thanks to Brian Quirt