Amaal Said

Selected for AFI'26 by Forma, London and Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea, UK

'Forma selected 'Open Country' for Artists Film International because of the sensitivity with which Amaal Said approaches questions of representation, belonging, and visibility within the British landscape. Developed during a residency at FormaHQ, the film reflects on what it means to move through space as a Black Muslim woman — navigating the tensions between presence, exposure, and the desire for connection within environments historically shaped by exclusion and inherited ideas of national identity.

Recently co-commissioned by Forma with Film and Video Umbrella and Three Rivers as part of The Open Road, 'Open Country' foregrounds forms of attention and self-representation that resist spectacle or fixed narratives of identity. Rather than positioning the landscape as neutral terrain, Said reveals it as something socially and historically constructed: a space where questions of belonging are continually negotiated through acts of looking, movement, and appearance.

The film’s power lies in its restraint. Through a quiet and deeply attentive cinematic language grounded in care and lived experience, 'Open Country' proposes visibility as something fragile and self-determined — shaped not only by the ability to be seen, but by the freedom to occupy space on one’s own terms.'

Antonia Shaw, Head of Programmes, Forma

Amaal Said offered:
'Open Country' has been an enriching experience for me, both personally and professionally. Through the project, I was able to reflect on my relationship to physical space as a Black Muslim woman, and on how visibility and safety are negotiated in everyday life. I wanted the work to create space for a mother and daughter to move freely through the landscape. Their journey becomes an act of discovery, of place, but also of one another. Making this work required confronting my own anxieties around public space: the ways I have learned to hide and to minimise myself. Allowing the camera to follow this journey, and inviting an audience to witness it, felt both challenging and liberating.'

Amaal Said