Bassam Tariq attends ‘Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother’ New York screening at Fouquet’s New York.
Santiago Felipe/Getty Images for Amazon MGM Stud
Bassam Tariq’s new film Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is an Odyssey that could only happen in Houston.
Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother stars two-time Academy Award-winning actor Mahershala Ali as Latif, a hitman and devout Muslim who, after the death of his wife, goes on a desperate mission around Houston to secure breast milk for his newborn child. It’s a film about grief, fatherhood, faith, and hypocrisy that is as meditative as it is thrilling.
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The movie is a collision of cultures, religions, and worldviews. Where else would these groups be on top of each other, not beholden to zoning laws, overlapping and sharing culture and ultimately conflicting with one another? Where else would the film’s villain be a Korean Evangelical Christian military cowboy who wears a diamond grill and it not seem ridiculous?
“This city is like a collision of all these cultures and classes,” director Tariq told Chron. “There’s no place like it, I believe. And I wanted to figure out a way to bring that to life.”
Tariq, who was born in Pakistan and moved to the United States when he was very young, moved to Houston at age 11. As an immigrant and being Muslim himself, he expresses that unique experience and those memories throughout the film.
For example, in the film, a contingent of Mormon missionaries lives next to Latif and his children in their apartment complex. Tariq’s parents actually lived in an apartment complex in Houston a few years ago, and his mother was fixated on the Mormon missionaries next door.
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“Her next-door neighbors were these Mormons that were just, like, 18-year-old kids. And my mom was so worried about them,” Tariq said, explaining that his mother wanted to cook for them. “In Houston, there are just all these people that are living around each other in a way that I don’t know if it happens in any other city.”
How the movie approximates Houston
Bassam Tariq’s Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother celbrates Houston’s diversity while telling a deeply personal story.
Amazon /MGM
Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is set completely in Houston but was shot almost entirely in Atlanta. The film goes to great lengths to show it’s set in Houston. It has many pickup shots featuring stretches of road like Southwest Bissonet (the real Bissonet, according to Tariq), making the world feel familiar. Aga’s, the iconic Houston restaurant, is even approximated as a stand-in for a crucial scene. Tariq revealed at a Q&A after the Houston Cinema Arts Festival opening night screening that the restaurant was Aga’s in all but name, joking that the restaurant did not need any more press anyway. The little details ultimately help the film give off Houston in a special way.
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“I wish we could have shot this whole movie in Houston. That would have been my dream,” Tariq said. “Unfortunately, we couldn’t do it in Houston because the tax rebate. I think it’s gotten better now, but when we started two years ago, it wasn’t there.”
Atlanta was also once the base of operations for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Tariq and Ali were tapped to direct and star in the MCU’s Blade reboot, but after years in limbo, the project was never realized. But it all led to them coming together to make Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother. Marvel’s relocation to London left many talented teams in Atlanta with no work, and the opportunity to work with them was an added benefit of filming there.
Atlanta is also home to a great community of Black Muslims, who Tariq had become very enmeshed with while living there. The film goes to great lengths to accurately portray Islam and how Muslims practice their faith, and the familiarity with the Atlanta muslim community was something that helped bring authenticity to the movie.
“My kids were in school there, and we were part of the community there, so I felt I could easily bring that to life,” Tariq said. “And many of them were already in the film industry, so it didn’t feel like I had to communicate a lot of what it means to be Muslim. They kind of just knew it.”
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As for Houston, Tariq has an undying appreciation and love for the city. The frustrations we all face and the beauty of this diverse, lawless land. When asked about having more Houston stories to tell, he indicated he does—and a strong desire to tell them.
“Pray for me that I’m able to make them. I’m hoping. I love Houston,” Tariq said. “I’d love for it to happen soon. I want to make more stuff here.”