25 must-see films playing at this year’s AFI Fest

Jinn

What’s the story?: A young girl named Summer must decide whether to convert to Islam in the wake of her own changes into womanhood.

In Islamic culture, a “jinn” is a low-ranking spirit able to coax people into good or bad behavior. What better figure to use as a doorway to a coming-of-age story about a teenage girl trying to navigate the complex world of religion while trying to become an adult herself. Films like Mustang and Wadjda have brilliantly looked at the divided nature of being a woman in a culture whose patriarchy still sees them as chattel or second-class citizens, and reading about Jinn leads one to believe this will go deeper. Not only is Summer being compelled to convert to Islam, she’s also falling for a young boy, enhancing the divide further between personal autonomy and religious necessity.

Director Nijla Mu’min is from the East Bay of California, a place where some of my family lives. This year has seen some brilliant Bay Area filmmakers, from Boots Riley, who helmed Sorry to Bother You, to Ryan Coogler, and the recent Oakland set drama Blindspotting. For Mu’min, she isn’t focusing on her hometown, but the struggles of being a woman, a woman of color, and a woman of color wanting to detail a religion audiences hear about in a negative light regularly. Jinn looks like a movie meant to leave us thinking about the complex nature of gender and religion.