ShortList 2023: Queer Arab Comedy ‘Cousins’ Explores the Ties That Bind
thewrap.com“Cousins” was selected as a finalist in this year’s ShortList Film Festival, presented by TheWrap. You can watch the films and vote for your favorite here.To paraphrase one of the many quips Billy Crystal throws down in “When Harry Met Sally”: “In a city of 8 million people, you’re bound to run into your ex.” This is the shrewd setup for Karina Dandashi’s “Cousins,” a 13-minute, Brooklyn-set short centering on Layla (played by Dandashi) and Tarek (Ribal Rayess), two cousins whose reunion is turned upside down when Layla’s ex (Monica Sanborn) turns up at the same bar.“This is the first time I’ve actually done a comedy,” Dandashi told TheWrap.
A Pittsburgh native now living in New York City, the filmmaker has previously embraced stories about Arab Americans grappling with sexuality and desire in projects including her acclaimed short “Dress Up,” in which she also starred. “In my other narrative shorts, I’ve done more thoughtful, contemplative work that has a bit more of a serious tone.
But I thought it’d be really fun to take all those identities that I’m used to putting in my work in the past and put it towards something with a little more levity to it.”The key to “Cousins” is in the gentleness of its two main characters.
They’re similar in background but weren’t raised the same, and through their course of their reunion find commonalities that lead to quiet-storm confessions, culminating in a moving rendition of a nursery rhyme they grew up with. “I’m very surprised by the people that relate to the film,” Dandashi, who filmed over three days in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint and Crown Heights neighborhoods, said. “Whether or not they’re Syrian, or Arab, or Muslim, or queer, they come from a spectrum that have come up to me and.
