"New Muslim Cool," which airs Tuesday, June 23 as part of PBS' "POV" series, follows several years in the life of Hamza (né Jason) Perez.  Through her filmmaker's magic, Taylor turns the grit of Perez's Pittsburgh neighborhood and the grind of daily prejudice into visual poetry that flips from sensuous to searing in a heartbeat.

[Disclosure, as an advisor, I offered encouragement and screened cuts in progress. Yet nothing prepared me for the impact of the film, which kept me glued to the computer screen.]

Taylor takes us deep inside Perez's world, revealing a raw place of hope, fear, dreams, and disappointments. We follow the swaying, capped and covered head-bopping believers who groove to his music. We watch curiosity and concern light the faces of his tight-knit Puerto-Rican family when they greet his hijab-wearing African American bride. We see him struggle between anger and acceptance when the FBI inexplicably raids his community's masjid. And we understand that when he uses the term "jihad" to describe his inner spiritual struggle, we are looking at a man bend his entire being to sanctify every minute of every day of his life.  

Ever since September 11, journalists, essayists, memoirists, novelists, filmmakers, and playwrights have tried to depict what it means to be Muslim in America. Taylor, through Perez, gives us a portrait unlike anything I have read or seen or heard before. Maybe it's the fact of his otherness; perhaps it's the intimate look at his multiracial community, could be the aesthetics embodied in his persona—prophetic rapper/proud dad/perspicacious do-gooder. But maybe it's the force of Perez's religious commitment: hostility, prejudice and ignorance are small obstacles to be overcome. When Perez tells us that God answers his prayers and has blessed him time and again, we see what faith is made from.

Diane Winston