Malia Obama is making big moves as a director.
She’s slated to screen her short film, The Heart at the Sundance Film Festival this month. According to The Hollywood Reporter, she’s releasing the piece under the name Malia Ann (Ann is her middle name) and it will be part of the U.S. short fiction films category.
Both written and directed by Obama, The Heart follows a son who’s mourning the loss of his mother—and the odd request she leaves him in her will.
In an interview with the film festival, Malia shared more about the short: “The film 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 those things.”
She added, “We hope you enjoy the film and it makes you feel a bit less lonely, or at least reminds you not to forget about the people who are," she continued about the project.
Malia previously wrote for the Prime Video thriller series Swarm, which was co-created by Donald Glover and co-produced by his banner, Gilga. Gilga backed Malia’s film as one of its first projects, with Glover also “mentoring” Malia, per a GQ cover story from last April.
“The first thing we did was talk about the fact that she will only get to do this once,” Glover told the magazine. “You’re Obama’s daughter. So if you make a bad film, it will follow you around.”
It seems Glover has long been a fan of Barack Obama's daughter. He previously sang her praises in March 2022 at the Atlanta Season 3 premiere.
“She’s just like, an amazingly talented person,” he said. “She’s really focused, and she’s working really hard. I feel like she’s just somebody who’s gonna have really good things coming soon. Her writing style is great.”
