Full Film - Ashura in Detroit

Ashura in Detroit is a short documentary film that dives into the stunning Ashura holiday rituals of the Iraqi refugee communities of Detroit.

Director Biography - Razi Jafri

Razi Jafri is a documentary photographer, filmmaker, producer, and journalist whose work focuses on race, religion, immigration, human rights, democracy, and the changing cultural landscape in America. His recent projects include Hamtramck, USA, a film about democracy in America’s first Muslim majority city. The film was selected for a world premier at the SXSW film festival in 2020 and is scheduled for broadcast on the PBS program America ReFramed in the Spring of 2021. His other project, entitled, Loyalty, follows three Muslim chaplains as they navigate religious freedom and Islamophobia in the US military. Loyalty is currently nearing the end of production and is anticipated for a release in early 2023. As a photographer and journalist his work has appeared in National Geographic, National Public Radio, Vox Media, and others. Razi has served as a mentor in Kartemquin Films Diverse Voices in Docs (DVID) Fellowship. He has been awarded fellowships by Facing Change: Documenting Detroit in 2016, the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) in 2018, The Salzburg Global Forum in 2019, and most recently, the Knight Foundation Fellowship at the Sundance Film Festival in 2020. He is currently a graduate student pursuing an MFA at the Stamps School of Art + Design at the University of Michigan, where he will graduate in the Spring of 2022.