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Bassam Tariq attends ‘Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother’ New York screening at Fouquet\u2019s New York on September 15, 2026 in New York City. (Photo by Santiago Felipe\/Getty Images for Amazon MGM Studios and Orion Pictures)<\/p>\n
Santiago Felipe\/Getty Images for Amazon MGM Stud<\/p>\n
Bassam Tariq attends ‘Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother’ New York screening at Fouquet\u2019s New York on September 15, 2026 in New York City. (Photo by Santiago Felipe\/Getty Images for Amazon MGM Studios and Orion Pictures)<\/p>\n
Santiago Felipe\/Getty Images for Amazon MGM Stud<\/p>\n
(l-r) In 2006, Bassam Tariq was a photographer for the Muslim community photo-study project. He acted as a narrator for Ali\u00a0Elhaj, 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
BILLY SMITH II\/HOUSTON CHRONICLE\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
In 2003, 16-year-old\u00a0Bassam\u00a0Tariq was a\u00a0poet set to perform\u00a0as part of an art exhibit and performance arts program of Muslim artists at the Hobby Cente<\/p>\n
Steve Campbell\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
And to think it all started with breast milk.<\/a><\/p>\n The substance plays a major role in the Houston-set thriller \u201cYour Mother Your Mother Your Mother\u201d <\/a>(opening Friday), the story of a devout but conflicted, sword-wielding Muslim hit man named Latif (played by\u00a0Mahershala 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\u00a0a punch line, for Pakistani-born director\/writer Bassam Tariq, <\/a>who came of age in Houston (Kempner High, represent!) and now divides\u00a0his time between New York City and H-Town, the situation was no laughing matter.<\/p>\n TOP HOUSTON FILMS: From ‘Urban Cowboy’ to ‘Boyhood,’ here are the top 30 movies filmed or set in Houston.<\/a><\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cIn 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,\u201d says Tariq, 39, in an interview during a recent visit to Houston in advance of a sold-out screening of \u201cYour Mother\u201d at the Houston Cinema Arts Festival.<\/p>\n \u201cHe wasn\u2019t 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\u2019t find it\u2026 When she got well enough, he finally nursed, and he was still really fussy \u2026<\/p>\n \u201cI 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.’ \u2026 I\u2019ve been contending with this idea of how do I be a present father, even now.\u201d<\/p>\n ‘YOUR MOTHER’ REVIEW:\u00a0Mahershala Ali lost \u2018Blade.\u2019 He made a better movie instead.<\/a><\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n That feeling of both panic and paternity became the seed for \u201cYour Mother,\u201d a tale that marries the myth of the loner samurai hero, exacting revenge on those who\u2019ve wronged his community, with the story of a man whose faith has been shaken and who\u2019s just trying to do his best for his three children in the sudden absence of their mother. He\u2019s a feast of contradictions, a killer who won\u2019t allow his son to play violent video games.<\/p>\n 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\u00a0New York magazine\u2019s Vulture site put it so succinctly<\/a>: ” ‘Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother’ is a film about faith, grief, fatherhood, and stabbing people to death.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYour Mother\u201d 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<\/a>; it\u2019s also pulling good numbers at the box office. It earned\u00a0$199,000 in just six theaters in LA and New York <\/a>during its limited-engagement opening weekend. It opens wide across the country Oct. 16.<\/p>\n ‘Blade’ runner<\/p>\n None of this might be happening for Tariq, whose other releases\u00a0such as the Netflix short documentary \u201cGhosts\u00a0of Sugar Land,\u201d the indie feature \u201cMogul Mowgli\u201d with Riz Ahmed, and the Prime series \u201cBait\u201d (which he co-directed) are smaller in scope, if not for another act of misfortune. But this one had nothing to do with breastfeeding.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n In July, 2021, it looked as if Tariq\u2019s filmmaking ship had come in. It was announced he would head up a reboot of \u201cBlade,\u201d<\/a> starring Mahershala Ali as the Marvel\u00a0superhero originally popularized by actor Wesley Snipes. But a year later, in what Deadline called\u00a0\u201ca stunning turn of events,\u201d<\/a> the deal collapsed, and Tariq was out.<\/p>\n Today, Tariq concedes there was a lot of pressure and that the production\u2019s failure might have been the best thing for him in the long run.<\/p>\n (L to R) Actor Mahershala Ali, director Bassam Tariq and actor Jahleel Kamara on the set of ‘Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother’\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Jaclyn Martinez\/Jaclyn Martinez\/Amazon<\/p>\n \u201cI think when you\u2019re in a system like that \u2026 it\u2019s filmmaking by committee, which is fine, because they do excellent films,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s necessarily the kind of films I want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n But the experience gave him a taste for what a big production is like and introduced him to Ali. They immediately got along.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cI felt like I met my spiritual ally and now he\u2019s become pretty much a spiritual brother,\u201d he says. \u201cThe reason why he\u2019s such an established and esteemed actor is not because he\u2019s running around in Spandex. He\u2019s playing roles with such dignity, with such weight, and he\u2019s taking big risks. Even this film, I was like, ‘I don\u2019t know if he\u2019s going to want to do this.’ You\u2019re a Muslim hit man looking for breast milk? It\u2019s totally strange on the page \u2026 All he had seen of mine was ‘Mogul\u00a0Mowgli,’ which he was a fan of, thank God \u2026 (But) he could have easily been, ‘Could you really pull this off? ‘\u201d<\/p>\n Muslims on screen<\/p>\n What\u2019s most unique about Tariq\u2019s 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\u2019s Mo Amer, but Tariq is a rare American director doing it on the big and\u00a0small\u00a0screen.<\/p>\n The eye-opening \u201cGhosts of Sugar Land\u201d reflects on how a group of South Asian Muslim high-school buddies had unintentionally\u00a0othered and isolated an African American member of their friend group who would later convert to Islam, become radicalized and join ISIS. In the intense \u201cMogul Mowgli,\u201d 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 \u201cBait,\u201d Ahmed plays\u00a0a down-on-his-luck actor hoping to become the first South Asian James Bond.<\/p>\n Bassam Tariq, Riz Ahmed photographed in 2021 at the photo call for ‘Mogul Mowgli’\u00a0at the Berlinale Palast during the 70th Berlinale International Film Festival.<\/p>\n P. Lehman\/Barcroft Media via Get\/Barcroft Media via Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m excited about things that I haven\u2019t seen and people that I know in my community that I love; I want to understand and see in a different way,\u201d he says. \u201cI 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\u2026 It was called ‘Auntie Fighter,’ and we had sold it.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n “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 \u2026 It\u2019s important for me to write those roles. But, at the same time, I\u2019m also excited about people being empowered to say, ‘You\u2019re in this little bubble doing this Muslim thing with men. I\u2019m going to do my own (thing).’ I think we need all of that \u2026 The community is not monolithic, which is exciting because it\u2019s so big and messy and beautiful in its own way.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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