Jaddoland

A visit to my mother's home art studio in Texas prompts a deeper exploration into the meaning of home across generations and landscapes. 

Filmed in English, Arabic and Turkman (Iraqi Turkish)  in Lubbock, Texas. HD, 90 min, 2018.

AWARDS


WINNER, Independent Spirit Awards TRUER THAN FICTION Award, Jan 2020
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE, Austin Asian American Film Festival, May 2019
SPECIAL JURY AWARD, San Diego Asian Film Festival, Nov 2019
SPECIAL JURY AWARD, LA Asian Pacific Film Festival, May 2019
SPECIAL JURY MENTION, New Orleans Film Festival, Oct. 2018

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CREATIVE TEAM

Written, Directed & Filmed by Nadia Shihab
Produced by Talal Al-Muhanna & Nadia Shihab
Edited by Avril Jacobson
Assoc. Produced by Sara Dosa & Lara Sarkissian
Original Music by Mark David Ashworth, Nadia Shihab & Martin Crane
Color/Online by Robert Arnold
Sound Mix by Dan Olmsted
Additional Editing by Nadia Shihab, Sara Booth, and Angad Singh Bhalla

SUPPORTERS

​Sundance Documentary Fund, Center for Asian American Media, Firelight Media, Tribeca Film Institute, World Channel/America Reframed, IFP Doc Lab, Center for Cultural Innovation, ENJAAZ, Formby Fellowship, MacDowell Colony, Djerassi Residency
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REVIEWS & QUOTES

"Intimate, experimental, and beautifully playful."
- Documentary Award Jury, Austin Asian American Film Festival

 "Jaddoland is a breath of fresh air: a film not tied down by convention or structure, it playfully and thoughtfully plumbs issues of identity, art, and belonging.
- Clint Bowie, Artistic Director, New Orleans Film Festival
 

​"Lying somewhere between experimental and home movie, filmmaker Nadia Shihab’s debut documentary JADDOLAND is a film as much about the shiftiness of place and personhood, as it is about Shihab’s curiosity as she gets reacquainted with a mother who evolves away from her in surprising ways."
 - Christina Ree, San Diego Asian Film Festival​

“As Nadia watches, a picture emerges of what an uncareful observer might call assimilation: an outward adjustment obscuring depths of diasporic longing, the doubling and tripling of identities always grounded by that shifting but insistent anchor, the question of home.”
    - Jon Kieran, Senior Programmer, New Orleans Film Festival
 

“Shihab’s palpable love for her mother courses through her film and “Jaddoland” functions both as a tribute to her work and life as well as a sincere interrogation of the idea of “home,” how the concept morphs and evolves depending on one’s own comfort with their journey.”
- Vikram Murthi, rogerebert.com 

​“[Shihab's] contemplation of the meaning of home unfolds also as a deeply moving meditation on the impact of time.
- Lisa Elin, Houston Film Critics Society​

​"Jaddoland’s expansive aesthetics creates new spaces for diverse audience reflections about how identity and culture are not only inherited but re-created and co-created across geography and time." 
- Natalie Nesvaderani and Miasarah Lai, Visual Anthropology Review

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View on USHUB TV (globally) or through Grasshopper Film or Amazon Prime Video (north america only). 

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