I Told You So

After years of debilitating period pain and unexplained symptoms, Malak finally gets a diagnosis: she has endometriosis, a chronic inflammatory disease that affects 1 in every 10 women and people who menstruate worldwide. Despite being so prevalent, the disease has no known cause, no cure, and is not taken seriously, even by her own mother.

In I Told You So Malak grapples with a tumultuous relationship with her pain, her body and her dreams for the future. On this journey of discovery mired by self-doubt and shame, she enters the world of “Endo Warriors,” patients who have lost their patience, in hopes that she can finally come to terms with the question: “How do I live with this?”

Screens live on Saturday, Dec. 10

Q&A with filmmakers to follow

Filmmakers

Amaan Stewart previously graduated from NYU with a BA in Environmental Studies and two minors in Film Production and Social & Cultural Analysis. She has begun work on her second film.

Email: as6422@columbia.edu

Malak AlSayyad (she/her), a documentary filmmaker and editor from Cairo, Egypt, is fluent in Arabic, English and German. She holds a BA in Cinema Studies and Media Arts + Sciences from Wellesley College. While living in Berlin, Malak was the admin assistant at DOX BOX, a nonprofit that supports documentary filmmakers from Africa and the Middle East; and the social media & outreach coordinator for Elbarlament’s ‘Women Make Film’ Festival in Iraq. As a freelancer, she has documented political demonstrations in Germany, created Special Effects for an environmental sci-fi short, and edited an experimental indie music video. Malak’s work explores inequality, power and taboo, and the people and movements that challenge them. When she’s not making films, you’ll find her shimmying on the dancefloor, or swimming in the nearest body of water.

Email: ma4102@columbia.edu

Loren Townsley, from Los Angeles, Calif. is an accomplished visual journalist. She reports on stories about identity, gender and sexuality. Townsley is a graduate of California State University, Northridge where she earned her bachelor degrees in Journalism and Asian American Studies. After graduating, Townsley was selected to be a part of the National Association of Hispanic Journalist’s (NAHJ) student projects. She then started working as a photojournalism intern at the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and in 2017 was a Chips Quinn Scholar and Pulliam fellow at the Arizona Republic. Her most recent position was at the Argus Leader in Sioux Falls, S.D. where she worked as a staff photojournalist.

Email: lat2159@columbia.edu