It’s vital for children to see people like themselves on screen, believes screenwriter and director Raisah Ahmed.
I didn’t write Asian characters. I was afraid to
Raisah Ahmed, screenwriter and director
She told Dream Job’s Bryan Burnett, “It makes you feel like you’re represented and like you can have them as a role model.”
As the first child of her Pakistani family born in Scotland, she found very few such stories in the books and films in which she immersed herself. So she started creating them herself.
Raisah says that, initially, she censored herself. “I didn’t write Asian characters. I was afraid to.
“I didn’t know how to write them in a way that would be acceptable to ‘western’ audiences and not go against what was true/what I knew to be true.
“I began to realise that if I didn’t write what I knew, if I didn’t write our stories, if I didn’t write the experiences that led to me being who I am, where I am and what I am, then nobody would.
“Everyone would just believe that every Asian girl is a victim of a forced marriage or has to be disowned or avoid an honour killing in order to live how she wants to live.”
Raisah's stories now focus on strong female Asian characters. Her recent film Meet Me by the Water, focused on a young Scottish Asian woman torn between family and tradition and the chance of an independent life.
