Malia Obama Debuts Her First Film at Sundance, Hopes It Makes People “Feel a Bit Less Lonely”

Tucked into the US short fiction films category at this year’s Sundance Film Festival is the unassuming film debut of a writer-director who submitted under the name “Malia Ann.” The world knows her better as Malia Obama, the 25-year-old daughter of former president Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama.

On Thursday, the Harvard grad walked the carpet in support of The Heart, an 18-minute short film she wrote and directed starring Tunde Adebimpe and LaTonya Borsay. According to the Sundance website, The Heart is about a lonely man grieving the death of his mother after she leaves him an unusual request in her will. In a “Meet the Artist” video released ahead of the fest, Obama called it “an odd little story” that she hoped would make viewers “feel a bit less lonely” or remind them “not to forget about the people who are.”

A few reviews for the film have begun to trickle in on Letterboxd, with critiques ranging from “actually pretty amazing” to “needed a little work.” Prior to the film’s premiere, Obama explained that her short is “about lost objects and lonely people and forgiveness and regret, but I also think it works hard to uncover where tenderness and closeness can exist in these things.” In the same video, she thanked “the folks who came together to make this film,” adding, “[they] have my heart—pun intended.”

One such person may be Donald Glover, whose production company, Gilga, helped Obama bring her debut film to life. Obama, who got her start in Hollywood interning for the Weinstein Company and on the set of Girls, was hired as part of the writers room on Glover’s Emmy-nominated Prime Video series, Swarm. She got a writing credit on the show’s fifth episode, “Girl, Bye,” alongside series co-creator Janine Nabers.

“The first thing we did was talk about the fact that she will only get to do this once,” Glover told GQ last April of mentoring Malia. “You’re Obama’s daughter. So if you make a bad film, it will follow you around.” His creative partner at Gilga, Fam Udeorji, added of the former first daughter, “Understanding somebody like Malia’s cachet means something. But we really wanted to make sure she could make what she wanted—even if it was a slow process.”

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