upcoming grant deadline: 05/15/2024
Zilan is an independent filmmaker whose work is informed by her experiences of being Sri Lankan and Muslim, growing up in India, and living as an immigrant in the US where she works in multiracial and multicultural communities. Zilan has produced documentaries for broadcast on feminist and Third World issues since the 80s. She has been documenting Philadelphia communities, and in particular its Muslim community, for over two decades. In the mid-1990s, she was invited by Black Liberation Movement leader Kwame Ture to film his public and the behind-the-scenes activities. In the last year, she has documented the historic Church of the Advocate in Art of the Advocate and produced At the Wall, a film about the stories of people who struggled against racial injustice, clashing daily with Frank Rizzo's police force during the 14-year battle to integrate North Philadelphia's Girard College.