Alan Ball’s extraordinarily faithful adaptation of Alicia Erian’s semi-autobiographical 2005 novel, “Towelhead,” made lots of people uncomfortable when it was shown at the Seattle International Film ...

Against the backdrop of the first Gulf War, Jasira Maroun is 13, physically well developed but naïve and unable to say no. As puberty arrives, her mother sends her from Syracuse to Houston to her curt ...

Not far into his feature directorial debut, “Towelhead,” Alan Ball offers us the sight of a thirteen-year-old girl having her first period in a bathroom stall; this is shot from a low angle, with the ...