When Karina Dandashi set out on her journey to become a filmmaker, she never expected it would take her back to her hometown of Pittsburgh. She especially didn’t expect it would be to create her first queer coming-of-age story.
Dandashi, a queer Syrian-American filmmaker who grew up in Fox Chapel, has been making a name for herself with her humorous and lovingly told films focused on Arab-Ameircan family relationships with relatable queer leads. This included the short film Cousins, streaming for free now on the New Yorker website, which tells the story of a reunion between two cousins that takes a chaotic turn when an ex-girlfriend arrives.
Last year, Dandashi returned home from New York City to create another humorous family drama, Baba I’m Fine. The short tells the story of an angsty Pittsburgh teen having relationship problems with her girlfriend while her father tries desperately to connect with her. It is set to premiere at the prestigious SXSW Film Festival in Austin next week on March 8th.
Dandashi sat down with QBurgh ahead of the premiere to chat about her “girly pop” film influences, making her first film in Pittsburgh, and why she is excited to tell this queer Arab story.
So, I know you tell a lot of stories about family dynamics, but tell us a little bit about how this film came to be.
Yeah, I had the idea of wanting to write a queer Arab-American coming-of-age story for a while. Sort of based on my own experiences of my multicultural family and also growing up in Pittsburgh.
I wrote [a feature film script] and I took it to the Film Independent Screenwriting Lab. After that, I just thought it would be a really great test to take that feature and make a short proof of concept for it.
I connected with [Stephen Turselli and Dan Duthie], two local Pittsburgh producers from Solano Pictures. They really wanted to see more diverse stories, more queer stories in Pittsburgh. And so they just totally hopped on board.
You capture this very specific kind of teenage angst very well. Without spoiling too much, I want to talk about these fantasy scenes in the film where the protagonist enters these music video-esque montages. Can you talk a little bit about how you created these scenes and what influenced them?
First of all, I do just have a love for music and, even beyond that, musical theater. My sister is in the theater world, she had a show that was on Broadway (editors note: look up her sister, Nadia Dandashi, who is also amazing). I think our family comes from a love of musical theater.
I also think I’m just a lover of the “girly pop” – like the queer revolution in pop music in general right now. You know, all the music videos, including ones by Olivia Rodrigo. Tehillah De Castro, my director of photography, had a lot of music video experience, so she also helped me pull stills and come up with a plan for what [these montages] looked like.
So we were like, “Oh, this is like an Arab Olivia Rodrigo moment.”
I loved it. I think those were my favorite scenes to shoot.
And the film features some really iconic parts of Pittsburgh – including Salem’s in the Strip District and the Duquesne Overlook. I’m interested to hear how you approached picking locations.
Yeah, as a filmmaker, you’re always having images in your head of “What do I want to see on camera.” Like, “What feels Pittsburgh to me? What feels nostalgic to me? What do I think of when I think of my city?” And I always just go back to my memories growing up.
I love the view from up [on the Overlook]. And I thought that that would be a very special, beautiful, nostalgic place for the daughter and father in the film to have a special moment. Besides that, I’ve always been a big fan of Salem’s and the strip district. Me and my dad would always get shawarma together there.
I really love that Pittsburgh has such a strong history of immigrants coming to the city.
My dad’s an immigrant, so I felt, thematically, that’s always something that made me endear towards the city in a lot of ways.
And you moved back to Pittsburgh from New York City, in part, to work on this film. Can you talk a bit about that experience and what you found when you returned to the city?
I think a lot of people sort of take their hometowns for granted. You don’t really see it as anything special.
I think being away from Pittsburgh for so long, I was in New York for eight years, I’ve come to look back at Pittsburgh and find it to be a real gem.
I was also surprised to find queerness and diversity here as well because I didn’t really go looking for these things as a kid growing up. I came into my queerness probably after college, I would say like fully accepting myself and taking on the identity of a queer person and kind of exploring that side of myself.
Oh, interesting. And this experience influenced your approach to telling this story?
I’ve come to find Pittsburgh more queer and more open than I would have thought, honestly. It’s been a really awesome experience realizing that about my hometown.
I think that a lot of people have misconceptions about Pittsburgh. It’s really cool to put Pittsburgh on the big screen and show there are queer Arab Americans here in Pittsburgh. And we have stories to tell.
Baba I’m Fine will screen at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas, on March 8th and 11th as part of Narrative Short Program 3. You can learn more here.
