Bassam Tariq attends ‘Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother’ New York screening at Fouquet’s New York on September 15, 2026 in New York City. (Photo by Santiago Felipe/Getty Images for Amazon MGM Studios and Orion Pictures)
Santiago Felipe/Getty Images for Amazon MGM Stud
Bassam Tariq attends ‘Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother’ New York screening at Fouquet’s New York on September 15, 2026 in New York City. (Photo by Santiago Felipe/Getty Images for Amazon MGM Studios and Orion Pictures)
Santiago Felipe/Getty Images for Amazon MGM Stud
(l-r) In 2006, Bassam Tariq was a photographer for the Muslim community photo-study project. He acted as a narrator for Ali Elhaj, Houston City Council member M.J. Khan, and the Director of the Texas Dawah Convention as they viewed the photographs Thursday, December 21, 2006 at the Islamic Society of Greater Houston’s Main Center during an exhibit documenting Muslim Communities across the state of Texas.
BILLY SMITH II/HOUSTON CHRONICLE/Houston Chronicle
In 2003, 16-year-old Bassam Tariq was a poet set to perform as part of an art exhibit and performance arts program of Muslim artists at the Hobby Cente
Steve Campbell/Houston Chronicle
And to think it all started with breast milk.
The substance plays a major role in the Houston-set thriller “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother” (opening Friday), the story of a devout but conflicted, sword-wielding Muslim hit man named Latif (played by Mahershala Ali) whose wife has died and left behind a formula-allergic infant, forcing dad to hunt all over town for the real deal. While that might sound like some strange set-up in search of a punch line, for Pakistani-born director/writer Bassam Tariq, who came of age in Houston (Kempner High, represent!) and now divides his time between New York City and H-Town, the situation was no laughing matter.
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“In 2014, when my wife gave birth to our first son, she had an infection, was sent into the emergency room, and my son was only taking breast milk,” says Tariq, 39, in an interview during a recent visit to Houston in advance of a sold-out screening of “Your Mother” at the Houston Cinema Arts Festival.
“He wasn’t able to take any formula. I tried to feed him, and he threw it up. So I was trying to find breast milk around New York City; I couldn’t find it… When she got well enough, he finally nursed, and he was still really fussy …
“I remember on the cab ride back from the hospital, I just held him close to me because he was crying so much in the car seat. Then he just finally calmed down, and I (realized) that ‘Oh, maybe he just needs to be his dad.’ … I’ve been contending with this idea of how do I be a present father, even now.”
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That feeling of both panic and paternity became the seed for “Your Mother,” a tale that marries the myth of the loner samurai hero, exacting revenge on those who’ve wronged his community, with the story of a man whose faith has been shaken and who’s just trying to do his best for his three children in the sudden absence of their mother. He’s a feast of contradictions, a killer who won’t allow his son to play violent video games.
The film, dancing along the fine line between action and arthouse, the visceral and the spiritual, has been greeted mostly with critical hosannas since opening in New York and Los Angeles two weeks ago. As New York magazine’s Vulture site put it so succinctly: ” ‘Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother’ is a film about faith, grief, fatherhood, and stabbing people to death.”
“Your Mother” received a standing ovation at Cinema Arts, won Tariq the Rising Star award at the Toronto International Film Festival, and is above 90% on Rotten Tomatoes; it’s also pulling good numbers at the box office. It earned $199,000 in just six theaters in LA and New York during its limited-engagement opening weekend. It opens wide across the country Oct. 16.
‘Blade’ runner
None of this might be happening for Tariq, whose other releases such as the Netflix short documentary “Ghosts of Sugar Land,” the indie feature “Mogul Mowgli” with Riz Ahmed, and the Prime series “Bait” (which he co-directed) are smaller in scope, if not for another act of misfortune. But this one had nothing to do with breastfeeding.
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In July, 2021, it looked as if Tariq’s filmmaking ship had come in. It was announced he would head up a reboot of “Blade,” starring Mahershala Ali as the Marvel superhero originally popularized by actor Wesley Snipes. But a year later, in what Deadline called “a stunning turn of events,” the deal collapsed, and Tariq was out.
Today, Tariq concedes there was a lot of pressure and that the production’s failure might have been the best thing for him in the long run.
(L to R) Actor Mahershala Ali, director Bassam Tariq and actor Jahleel Kamara on the set of ‘Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother’
Jaclyn Martinez/Jaclyn Martinez/Amazon
“I think when you’re in a system like that … it’s filmmaking by committee, which is fine, because they do excellent films,” he says. “But I don’t know if that’s necessarily the kind of films I want to do.”
But the experience gave him a taste for what a big production is like and introduced him to Ali. They immediately got along.
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“I felt like I met my spiritual ally and now he’s become pretty much a spiritual brother,” he says. “The reason why he’s such an established and esteemed actor is not because he’s running around in Spandex. He’s playing roles with such dignity, with such weight, and he’s taking big risks. Even this film, I was like, ‘I don’t know if he’s going to want to do this.’ You’re a Muslim hit man looking for breast milk? It’s totally strange on the page … All he had seen of mine was ‘Mogul Mowgli,’ which he was a fan of, thank God … (But) he could have easily been, ‘Could you really pull this off? ‘”
Muslims on screen
What’s most unique about Tariq’s films is how he creates flawed, three-dimensional and strikingly human Muslim characters (especially Muslim men) who are far from media stereotypes. His productions echo the work of television series from comedians Ramy Youssef and Houston’s Mo Amer, but Tariq is a rare American director doing it on the big and small screen.
The eye-opening “Ghosts of Sugar Land” reflects on how a group of South Asian Muslim high-school buddies had unintentionally othered and isolated an African American member of their friend group who would later convert to Islam, become radicalized and join ISIS. In the intense “Mogul Mowgli,” Riz Ahmed plays an aging British Pakistani rapper struck down by an autoimmune disorder just as he is about to break through. In the crafty, darkly funny “Bait,” Ahmed plays a down-on-his-luck actor hoping to become the first South Asian James Bond.
Bassam Tariq, Riz Ahmed photographed in 2021 at the photo call for ‘Mogul Mowgli’ at the Berlinale Palast during the 70th Berlinale International Film Festival.
P. Lehman/Barcroft Media via Get/Barcroft Media via Getty Images
“I’m excited about things that I haven’t seen and people that I know in my community that I love; I want to understand and see in a different way,” he says. “I just want to write from the truth that I can talk about. The funny thing is I wrote a show about a South Asian woman who was fighting skinheads in London in the ’80s… It was called ‘Auntie Fighter,’ and we had sold it.
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“It was like ‘Death Wish,’ but your mom is Charles Bronson. It had a fun energy, and it was about older women. But then it got dropped, got picked up, and dropped … It’s important for me to write those roles. But, at the same time, I’m also excited about people being empowered to say, ‘You’re in this little bubble doing this Muslim thing with men. I’m going to do my own (thing).’ I think we need all of that … The community is not monolithic, which is exciting because it’s so big and messy and beautiful in its own way.”
Also big, messy and beautiful is Houston itself. The antagonists in “Your Mother” include: a gun-toting Christian preacher, Pastor Hwan (played by Korean-American actor and one-time Houstonian John Cho sporting a Johnny Dang-style grill); an Arab gangster, Mike Mahmoudi (Laith Nakli from “Ramy”); and his hothead punk/pimp nephew, Hatty (Abubakr Ali, “A House of Dynamite”). Plus, a group of white Mormon missionaries lives next door to Latif and plays a small but pivotal role in his story. It’s all very, very Houston.
Tariq, who came of age in Houston after a very early childhood in New York, even banged out the script while working at various coffee houses around town. He says, “(Look) how vibrant the Vietnamese community is here, how vibrant the Korean community is, there’s so much going on here.”
Houston, we have a problem: Atlanta
While “Your Mother” actually was mostly filmed in Atlanta, Tariq says some exterior and pick-up shots were done in southwest Houston.
He points to Georgia’s more generous tax incentive program, as well as the depth of behind-the-scenes talent in Atlanta, as the reason for filming there. “The reality is the crews that we needed, and particularly with stunts, they were already in Atlanta, so it just made sense for us to go there,” he explains, noting that, until recently, when Marvel shifted much of its production to the UK, the Georgia city was a major filmmaking hub, especially for big action films.
Still, he would like to make an entire film about Houston in Houston one day.
Mahershala Ali, center, and Bassam Tariq (left) are pictured on the red carpet for “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother” at the Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto, on Sept. 12, 2026.
Laura Proctor/Associated Press
“It’d be my dream,” he says with a smile. “It would be my kids’ dream because they love Houston … My mom and dad are here. My in-laws are here. I have so much family here … The working-class energy of Houston and the grit of the people here excites me to no end … Houston will always be my home.”
He even fantasizes about teaching here.
“My dream is to do a class at Houston City College. I went to HCC … so I want to give back at the city college level,” he says. “I’m not interested in teaching at NYU, any of these big, fancy institutions. I want to be with the working-class people because that’s where I grew up. I want to help the people that helped me.”