Anatomy of a F*ckBoy
Director: Fatimah Asghar
Cast:Elio Kennedy-Yoon, Erin Lockett, Nicholas Byers, Vivian Liu-Somers, Yasmin De Paula, Tomias Robinson, Glor Dei Filippone, J Wortham, Chani Nicholas, Bear, Maple Leung, Sara Elise, Lanas Richelle, Nadia Iqbal, Sarah Anwer Khan, Raka Dey, Cherry Jaymes, Shira Erlichman, Ananya Garg, Rand Jitan, Akram Shibly
Crew:Writer: Fatimah Asghar; Producers: Sherif Ibrahim, Akram Shibly, Sara Kasen, Publikt Datta; Cinematographer: Kevin Yu; Editor: Cameron Clay
Email:fatimah.asghar@gmail.com
Synopsis
Anatomy of a f*ckboy follows a young director, as she makes a documentary delving into ELI, a misunderstood charming queer person who has recently had a smear campaign launched against them. As the filming commences, the director realizes that she might have been duped and has fallen for a f*ckboy who is using her.
About the director
Fatimah Asghar is an artist who spans across different genres and themes. They have been featured in various outlets such as TIME, NPR, Teen Vogue and the Forbes 30 Under 30 List. Their first book of poems was If They Come For Us and their debut novel, When We Were Sisters, was longlisted for the National Book Award and won the inaugural Carol Shield’s Prize. Along with Safia Elhillo they co-edited an anthology for Muslim people who are also women, trans, gender non-conforming, and/ or queer, Halal If You Hear Me, which was built around the radical idea that there are as many ways of being Muslim as there are Muslim people in the world. They are the writer and co-creator of the Emmy-nominated Brown Girls, a web series that highlights friendship among women of color that was in a development deal with HBO, and wrote and directed Got Game, a short film that follows a queer South Asian Muslim woman trying to navigate a kink party after being single, and wrote, directed and starred in Retrieval, a lyrical short film that follows the process of a soul retrieval in the aftermath of sexual assault. They are also a writer and co-producer on Ms. Marvel on Disney +, and wrote Episode 5, Time and Again. They are an ISF and Sundance Doris Duke Fellow and a 1497 Fellow. Their second book of poetry, Daughter of the Mountains, is forthcoming July 2026 as is their short mockumentary, Anatomy of a F*boy.
Filmmaker's note
Unfortunately, I have dated way too many fuckboys (of all genders) throughout my life and therefore have spent an inordinate amount of time analyzing them, thinking about them, and wondering why they do the fuckshit that they do. I was really taken by wanting to write something about fuckboys, something that has moments of levity, but also something that delves a bit deeper into humanizing them and moving past a binary system of good and bad/ victim and villain.
I wanted to create something that is situated deeply in queer community and queer anxieties—cancel culture, restorative justice, nonbinary identity and how we learn and unlearn toxic gender dynamics, and manipulation. I wanted to make something that felt like it got at the heart of dating someone you believe in, only to realize that you’ve been utterly duped and manipulated by them.
As the writer, director and producer, I am a queer nonbinary Muslim person. I leaned heavily on my communities to make this film. Our cast and crew was heavily Muslim and Queer– our crew was 40% Muslim and 77% women, nonbinary and/or trans; and our cast was 80% people of color, 55% queer, 91% women, nonbinary, and/or trans. We relied on our communities to make this film, pulling together an incredible team to get us through production and shooting. We engaged so many different members of our communities.