Storyville: Stand Up for Madinah by Zainab Sultan

Stand Up for Madinah by Zainab Sultan (USA, 2024, 25 minutes)

This story follows Madinah Wilson-Anton, an African American woman elected as Delaware’s first elected Muslim State Representative. She opposes U.S. support for Israel and fights to pass a ceasefire resolution. Members of her own Democratic party threaten to censure her over her outspoken pro-Palestinian stance, and she faces abuse and trolling online. Despite this, Wilson-Anton persevered and introduced a resolution in the Delaware House calling for a permanent end to Israel’s war on Gaza. She advocates for her community as a politician and she challenges perceptions of it in her free time as a budding stand-up comedian. The film premiered on Al Jazeera English.

Zainab Sultan is an award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker. She is also on the steering committee of Bitchitra Collective: Indian Women in Documentary, an organization advocating for the collective rights of women and non-binary filmmakers of Indian origin in US and India. Her work has been featured in the Columbia Journalism Review, Al Jazeera English, U.S. News and others. She is a graduate of the documentary program at Columbia University.