Bassam Tariq

Bassam Tariq (born October 22, 1986) is an independent filmmaker and producer born in Karachi, Pakistan. Tariq co-directed and produced the Sundance-funded documentary These Birds Walk (2013) with Omar Mullick, and he was named in Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film” in 2012.^[1][2]

Tariq’s works aim to uncover the diversity of Muslim life and experience. In addition to filmmaking, his diverse projects include blogging and writing, co-founding a halal butcher shop, and being a TED fellow.^[3][4]

Tariq lives in New York City with his wife and son.

Life and career

Tariq was born in Pakistan and moved to the U.S. with his family at a young age. He grew up in New York’s Astoria neighborhood and moved to Houston at age 11.

Tariq was the first person in his family to attend college,^[3] and he received a Bachelor of Science (BS) in advertising from the University of Texas at Austin in 2008.^[5] While in college, Tariq took a class called “Creativity in American Culture” that inspired him to start making films, which at first were corporate videos.^[3] He free-lanced and filmed promotional videos for Celestica, The University of Texas at Austin, and CBS News 11.^[5]

He moved to New York again after college and worked in advertising as a copywriter at Saatchi & Saatchi.^[3][5] He also worked as copywriter at other agencies, including RAPP and BBDO NY.^[5]

In 2009, Tariq and his friend Aman Ali started a blogging project called 30 Mosques in 30 Days.^[6] During Ramadan, Tariq and Ali broke their fast at different mosques around New York each night of Ramadan. They shared their stories on a Tumblr blog.^[3][6]

During the second year of the project, the men decided to visit 30 mosques in 30 different states during Ramadan,^[7] and they continued the tour of mosques around the country the following year.^[8] As they explored the different communities of each mosque, Tariq and Ali wrote about the diversity of America’s Muslim population and the themes that affect the Muslim community as a whole. The blog has gotten extensive press coverage, and the response has been largely positive. The Huffington Post called the project “visually stunning,”^[9] and more communities around the world have participated in a 30 mosques project.^[6]

In 2013, Tariq co-directed These Birds Walk with Omar Mullick. The film is his first feature-length documentary and follows street children in Pakistan.

In 2014, Tariq co-founded a halal butcher shop in the East Village in New York with Khalid Latif and Russell Khan.^[10] The shop, Honest Chops, was initially started because of the founders’ frustration with the lack of halal meat options in New York City. The butcher shop sources organic, humanely-raised animals from the Tri-State area and attempts to make the product accessible and affordable.^[11] A portion of the profits goes toward building social services and institutions in New York City. The shop also distributes meat to soup kitchens, food pantries and families in need around major holidays.^[10]

Tariq is also a TED Fellow. In October 2014, he hosted a TED Talk titled “The beauty and diversity of Muslim life.”^[12] The talk explores how his eclectic career reflects his perspective on what it means to be Muslim, and he relates his disparate professions as a response to the complicated history that America has with diversity and people who oversimplify Muslim beliefs and communities.^[3]

Tariq is also a freelance copywriter and creative director in New York City.^[5]

Films

Tariq collaborated with filmmaker Omar Mullick to film These Birds Walk. The film is his first feature-length documentary.

Tariq started filmmaking in college to earn extra money while getting his degree. He has also produced feature video stories for TIME Magazine, a short film for The New Yorker, and co-directed a PSA to encourage vaccination against polio in Pakistan.^[1][13]

The Sundance-funded These Birds Walk premiered at South by Southwest 2013 and opened in theaters across the US in November 2013. The film explores the struggles of street children in Karachi, Pakistan who are living the Edhi Foundation, a non-profit social welfare program, and the sympathetic but reluctant ambulance driver who has to take them back to the homes they’ve run away from.^[14]

When Tariq moved back to New York, he read about a humanitarian in Pakistan named Abdul Sattar Edhi, who started the first ambulance system in Pakistan in the 1950s and founded the Edhi Foundation. Tariq and Mullick wanted to make a film about him, but Edhi urged them to focus on the work his foundation does.^[3] As a result, the film follows a young runaway boy, Omar, who lives in a home for runaways that Edhi runs.

The Sundance Institute awarded Tariq and Mullick the Art of Nonfiction fellowship January 2016. The Art of Nonfiction initiative expands the institute’s support for documentaries that explore contemporary social issues.^[15]

These Birds Walk

Plot

The starting point of the film is Edhi. He washes naked runaway children who look undernourished, and he says that his philanthropic reputation doesn’t mean anything, telling the filmmakers, “If you want to find me, look to ordinary people.” For the rest of the film, Tariq and Mullick follow the children in the Edhi Home, in particular a child named Omar, and the ambulance driver, Asad, who was once a street kid himself.

Omar has run away from his family’s home in Taliban country and ends up in Karachi. Aided by Asad, Omar goes to the Edhi Foundation’s shelter for homeless children. Asad reveals that until the parents are found or come looking for the boy, Omar, like the other runaway children, will remain under Edhi’s care. Asad’s responsibilities as an ambulance driver include picking up children from police stations, taking them home, and transporting dead bodies. He admits that driving with dead bodies is easier than returning the children to their homes because sometimes the children must go back to abusive parents.

Omar and the other children are bored and sad in the shelter. They divide their time between praying and fighting, and they bond over conversations about God and what it means to be a man. Omar thinks of himself as strong and fierce, which earns him a fight with a much larger boy in a prolonged fight scene.

Eventually, Asad drives Omar back to his village through the night and returns him to his family. The reunion is underwhelming, and his mother admits that all her children have spent time at the Edhi Foundation.

The filmmakers don’t dwell on the boy’s personal history or the workings of the Edhi Foundation, rather, the film captures how Omar spends his days while in the home with other runaway children.

These Birds Walk steers away from statistics and social context of child runaways in Pakistan. However, Tariq and Mullick felt that statistics would oversimplify the role of the people in the film, and Tariq said, “They have trusted us with their lives. And we would sidestep it all for this idea of ‘relevance’ or ‘social context.’”^[16] The film is also an example of cinema vérité since the filmmakers present the story as they observed it. The film relies on the children’s pure emotion rather than on voiceover commentary or talking heads to tell the story.    

Critical Response

These Birds Walk was met with largely positive reviews. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 96 percent rating and an average rating of 8/10 based on 27 reviews.^[17]

Vadim Rizov of Filmmaker Magazine said, “It’s more rough than tender but never gratuitous or exploitative, hard to shake, and a fine entry in cinema’s history of tortured male youth.”^[18]

Adam Nayman of Point of View Magazine praised Tariq and Mullick for their use of handheld digital cameras, which “permit an even greater proximity and intimacy with the subjects. As a contemporary example of the practice of ‘direct cinema,’ These Birds Walk is extremely impressive.”^[19]

Tom Roston of PBS said, “This seemingly simple vérité depiction of boys in a Pakistani orphanage has a lyrical quality that shows the beauty and sadness of growing up poor in Pakistan."^[20]

Awards and Nominations

References