An After­noon With The Hijjabed

This is a short stu­dent film (8:29) from Mul­ti­me­dia Uni­ver­si­ty, near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The video is a col­lec­tion of inter­views with five women, all of whom wear a tudung (head-cov­er) to one extent or anoth­er. Each of the women answer a series of ques­tions (e.g., ​“What is aurat?” ​“Why do you wear the hij­jab?” and so on) to the best of their abil­i­ties. The film is inter­est­ing in that it cap­tures a cross-sec­tion of women who cov­er them­selves for dif­fer­ent rea­sons. You have the very tra­di­tion­al Zulaikha who wears both the tudung and niqab, Natasha, who wears a scarf that cov­ers almost noth­ing for the least sat­is­fac­to­ry rea­sons, and three oth­ers who all wear a tra­di­tion­al tudung although one, Wawa, a stu­dent, appar­ent­ly would take hers off in pub­lic giv­en the right cir­cum­stances (i.e., when she’s with friends).

Per­haps the best line in the doc­u­men­tary is from the cig­a­rette-smok­ing art direc­tor, Ley­la, who said very direct­ly, ​“I am a Mus­lim woman, and I’m not afraid to show it.”