There Was Nobody Here We Knew

Outside Washington, DC in the suburbs of Northern Virginia, Waleed Malik, a middle aged Pakistani immigrant becomes fascinated by a mysterious glowing orb outside his 12th floor apartment window. Meanwhile, Riffat Malik, his wife, has been seeing the orb for a year and believes it’s a UFO sent from outer space. It’s 2020 and millions of people around the world are confined to their homes in government sanctioned lockdowns to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

In this possible-documentary about possible aliens, a Pakistani couple in quarantine bicker and ruminate about extraterrestrial and terrestrial border-crossings of multiple kinds. There Was Nobody Here We Knew is as much about finding answers as it is about looking inward to understand how we arrived at where we are at and where we are headed.

About the Director
Khaula Malik is a filmmaker whose work explores intersectional identity and meanings of home. Most recently, she was selected for the 2020 Tribeca Chanel Through Her Lens program and the 2020 Cine Qua Non Revisions Lab. Her short film HOW THE AIR FEELS premiered at AFI Docs, won the National Board of Review Student Grant Award, and the Special Jury Award at the Sharjah Film Platform. She associate produced the award winning feature documentary, OF LOVE & LAW. She has served on the review committee for the Peabody Awards and The Gotham Documentary Lab. She was a fellow in the 2018 Hot Springs Emerging Filmmaker program with her feature documentary, THE NOBLE HALF, and an artist-in-residence at Governor’s Island for her multimedia project, THE WARMEST ZEROES. Khaula’s work has been featured in The New York Times, Sight & Sound, Brown Girl Magazine, as well as on CUNY TV. She is a proud member of Brown Girls Doc Mafia and a graduate of the MFA program at the Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema.