Sharp Edges

 Sharp Edges premiers on April 25 at the Crystal Theatre during the 5Point Film Festival (Se abre en una nueva ventana)in Carbondale, CO. 

Sharp Edges is a poetic narrative short that follows Shara Zaia(Se abre en una nueva ventana), a writer and climber, as she navigates the sharp edges of identity, belonging, and resilience within the Assyrian diaspora. Assyrians are one of the world’s oldest Indigenous peoples, yet most audiences have never heard of them. Often rendered invisible, misidentified, or collapsed into broader regional narratives, Assyrians rarely see their stories reflected on screen, especially within outdoor and mountain media. 

Rooted in intimate voiceover and textured visuals, the film traces Shara’s personal reckoning with assimilation and reclamation, collaborating with Assyrian creatives from around the world. Growing up between cultures in the American Midwest, she learned to navigate the tension between two worlds, internalizing messages about Middle Eastern people in a post-9/11 America. The messages turned from harmful to dangerous when a man threw his drink on her while calling her a terrorist. In an act of protection in her earlier years, she underwent surgery that distanced her from the Middle Eastern features passed down from her ancient ancestors. 

The most unsettling part: it worked.

Shielded from the racism that once marked her as other, she moved through the world with a new kind of safety. Along with it came a quiet, complicated grief. Now she is faced with a new challenge: celebrating her Assyrian identity in a world that erases it. 

By introducing audiences to a people and a history they likely do not know, the film expands cultural awareness while challenging narrow definitions of who belongs in adventure storytelling. Climbing becomes a metaphor not for conquest, but for survival, trust, and staying connected to one’s body, to community, and to ancestry. In doing so, Sharp Edges broadens the landscape of mountain media, insisting that diaspora stories, Indigenous narratives, and layered identities have always belonged there.

The act of tying in to project a route mirrors the ongoing work of cultural resilience. Strength is reframed not as sending a project, but as the courage to remain whole in a world that asks you to fragment. Resilience emerges as something inherited across generations of displacement and survival. Something practiced in everyday acts of remembrance. Something shared between climbers on a rope, between diasporic communities across borders, and between storyteller and audience.

Don’t miss Sharp Edges at its world premiere at 5Point Film Festival in Carbondale, CO on April 25. 

Follow Shara’s story at sharazaia.com(Se abre en una nueva ventana) or on Instagram @sharazaia(Se abre en una nueva ventana).

Photo Credit: Max Haimowitz, Nate Stephens, and Mike Thurk