Who am I writing for?

Whenever I complete a piece of work, I am faced with a question that unsettles me: who is this for? The industry insists on an answer. It wants categories, demographics, something measurable. But I have never approached writing or filmmaking with a defined audience in mind. I create because I feel compelled to, because there is something I need to explore, a question I have not yet resolved for myself. If I am being completely honest, I do not know whether this is the right approach. Perhaps it is naive. Perhaps it is arrogant to think that I can follow my instincts without compromise.

I have strong views on this, in spite of the fact that I am still early in my journey as a writer and director. Maybe that in itself is a kind of arrogance. With experience, will I change my mind? Will I start shaping my work differently, making creative decisions based on how easily an audience can connect? Right now, I resist the idea of making something more accessible for the sake of accessibility. But I cannot deny that there is a tension there – between wanting to tell stories in my own way and wanting those stories to resonate with others.

When I wrote a personal essay about food memory for The New Statesman, I was asked to elaborate on certain words, to explain meanings that I assumed readers could either infer or look up themselves. I did it, but reluctantly. The request felt strange. I had written from a place of personal truth, and it felt unnatural to alter my voice for the sake of a hypothetical reader who might not understand a reference. Is it my responsibility to guide them? Or is there value in leaving gaps, in allowing space for curiosity, for the work to be encountered on its own terms?

I was asked a similar kind of question during a Q&A for Beneath a Mother’s Feet. A young Moroccan man wanted to know if I considered myself to be writing from within or outside of Moroccan culture. It is a question I have been confronted with throughout my life. As someone of mixed heritage, I have never felt entirely inside or outside of anything. I have always existed in between. But it is not for me to define my position in relation to my own work. I told the story as truthfully as I could. Whether that places me within or outside a particular cultural frame is a judgment for others to make.

For me, Beneath a Mother’s Feet was never about resolving the past but about finding a way to hold it. Memories are unreliable. Stories shift. The truth is fluid, shaped by time, perspective, emotion. I did not set out to tell a clear, linear story. I was more interested in what could not be easily articulated – the weight of regret, the complexity of love bound by obligation, the pain of choices made under impossible circumstances. More than anything, I wanted the audience to feel something.

The films that have stayed with me are the ones that made me sit in an emotion I did not expect. Loveless by Andrey Zvyagintsev is one that comes to mind. The moment when the mother, who has spent so much of the film resentful and detached, is suddenly confronted with the realisation that her son is truly gone. The grief she expresses so uninhibitedly is not just about his absence. It is about the life she had with him, the things she did not do, the time she cannot get back. That kind of regret, the kind that cannot be undone, was something I thought about throughout the process of making Beneath a Mother’s Feet.

When I first read my completed draft of the screenplay aloud to my wife, she cried. That moment meant more to me than almost anything that came after. Not because I needed approval, but because she is my harshest critic, and I trust her judgment more than anyone else’s. We all need critics we trust – people who will tell us when something is not working, when we are taking the easy route, when we need to push further. The fact that she was moved by it made me feel, in that moment, that I had created something worthwhile.

But I know that not everyone will connect with my work in the same way. When the film was released, it received largely positive responses, but a 1.5-star review on Letterboxd recently caught my attention. Not because I expect universal praise, but because it made me question whether I had failed in what I set out to do. Looking at the reviewer’s ratings of other films, I saw that they swung between extremes. Films I loved were dismissed outright, while others I felt indifferent toward were praised. It made me consider how taste is subjective. Experience is subjective. But I wondered whether their reaction was a reflection of my own shortcomings as a director or simply a case of my work not being for them. And what does that even mean – for something not to be for someone? How much of a person’s response is shaped by their background, their temperament, their lived experience? And how much is shaped by the limitations of the work itself?

I do not consider myself a great writer or director. I see my flaws and shortcomings all too clearly. But I am proud of Beneath a Mother’s Feet. I know I put everything I had into it. And yet, I cannot shake the doubt. Was it a fluke? Can I do it again? Or was that my one good story? The only way to answer that question is to keep going.

Right now, I am deep in the process of writing a new feature screenplay set in 1930s Morocco within the confines of a colonial brothel, and it is difficult. This story demands rigorous research, not just for accuracy but because I have a responsibility to approach it with care. Telling stories is never just about plot. It is always a political act. When I step into a history that is not my own, I have to do so with humility. It is not just about whether I can tell the story but whether I should, and how I can do it in a way that does justice to those who lived it.

I do not have all the answers. I do not know exactly who my audience is or should be. But I know what kind of work I want to make. I want to create something that is thoughtful, that is careful, that does not simplify but also does not shut people out. If even a handful of people connect with it, if it moves them, if it lingers in their thoughts after they have left the cinema or put the book down, then maybe that is enough. Maybe that is the only measure of success that truly matters.