Anxious Brown Girl
Chicago, Illinois | Series
Comedy, Drama
When an anxious South Asian woman is hired at a performatively woke marketing agency, she must face her worst fears or risk losing her job. Written and directed by Aisha Hamid, co-produced by Ramsha Issa and Saloni Nahar
93 supporters | followers
Enter the amount you would like to pledge
$4,445
Goal: $10,000 for production
When an anxious South Asian woman is hired at a performatively woke marketing agency, she must face her worst fears or risk losing her job. Written and directed by Aisha Hamid, co-produced by Ramsha Issa and Saloni Nahar
Participating In
About The Project
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
Anxious Brown Girl follows our protagonist, Aman, a 25-year-old, meticulous, anxious Pakistani American, on her first day of work at a woman led startup called PitcHer that manages digital marketing for women led businesses.
Aman has just abandoned her smothering small town and moved out to Chicago – and out of the shadow of her overprotective parents and their dysfunctional relationship. She just wants to do her job well and prove to her parents that she made the right decision. But in a workplace obsessed with performative feminism and corporate diversity, she is forced to face her worst fears or risk losing her job on her first day; she must reconcile her anxiety with the demands of this fast-paced job, her crumbling personal life, and her contentious relationships with her co-workers.
This show needs to exist because it speaks to countless women like Aman who carry the invisible burden of being brown, woman and anxious.
It is for anxious girls who grew up in a South Asian household believing that love and acceptance had to be earned by people-pleasing, being a perfectionist, and working themselves to the bone at the cost of their mental health.
A lot of brown women, particularly anxious brown women, especially those who grew up in an unstable, tumultuous home, end up living a double life, masking their anxiety, lying to themselves and others to survive. For them, noticing becomes their love language.
Like Aman, I grew up studying my mother, my sister, my aunts, my female friends and cousins, who spent most of their life hiding, living that double life, living with the anxiety of being discovered for their true selves. Anxious Brown Girl is the result of that study, of that love, of simply noticing a woman navigate that double life and her inherited anxiety.
-Aisha Hamid, Writer & Director
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SPREAD THE WORD
Please share our campaign via your social media, email, word-of-mouth, however you want! We are grateful we get to bring this to life with your support! Here is some messaging - feel free to copy and paste!
Help bring @anxiousbrowngirlseries to life, made for the anxious girlies by the anxious girlies @_aisha.hamid_ @careercoachramshaa @suhhhloni Join them on @seedandspark seedandspark.com/fund/anxious-brown-girl
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Production Design & Props
Costs $500
To turn our location into our marketing agency's office, PitchHer!
Transportation of equipment
Costs $500
Rental of a U-Haul to transport equipment between filming locations.
Post-Production Fund
Costs $1,000
Help us kickstart our fund to invest in post-production audio and color grading.
Cast & Crew Payment Fund
Costs $2,500
Add to our budget to compensate our team, our shoot will span 10-12 days.
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
Aisha Hamid | Writer & Director
Aisha Hamid is a Pushcart-nominated writer, poet, playwright, and filmmaker from Lahore, Pakistan. She completed her MFA in Writing for the Screen and Stage from Northwestern University in 2025. As a Pritzker Pucker Studio Lab fellow 2024, she wrote, directed and produced her debut short film, Ponytail (2024), that won the New Waves Grand Award at the New York Indie Shorts Awards 2025 and marked her first foray into narrative filmmaking. Her stories explore neurodivergence, dysfunctional family dynamics, intergenerational trauma, and center the everyday lived experiences of brown women.
Ramsha Essa | Co-producer & Lead Actor
Ramsha Essa is an actor, writer, and community builder dedicated to amplifying South Asian voices. She is the founder of SheRises, a community supporting South Asian women through professional coaching, career development, financial literacy, and empowerment-driven events and workshops. She also founded Mestarlet, a creative platform offering branding, PR, and social media strategy for actors and creatives, where she serves as Core Writer and Creative Director, leading storytelling and campaign direction. Ramsha completed an extensive acting coaching program with Mystic Acts and is the author of Heroes Behind the Mask, known for emotionally layered storytelling that explores identity, ambition, trauma, and resilience through a South Asian lens.
Saloni Nahar | Co-producer & Supporting Actor
Outside of producing, Saloni Nahar is an actor, writer, and director. Her writing and directing work can be seen on @nayadinfilms. She also runs the Chicago Actors Hub, a community that connects and uplifts local artists through events and shared resources. She has improv training from The Second City and the Annoyance. Last year, she graduated from the Black Box ACADEMY, a 100-day intensive acting program focused on Meisner training. She is repped by Grossman & Jack Talent.
Current Team
Incentives
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
Anxious Brown Girl follows our protagonist, Aman, a 25-year-old, meticulous, anxious Pakistani American, on her first day of work at a woman led startup called PitcHer that manages digital marketing for women led businesses.
Aman has just abandoned her smothering small town and moved out to Chicago – and out of the shadow of her overprotective parents and their dysfunctional relationship. She just wants to do her job well and prove to her parents that she made the right decision. But in a workplace obsessed with performative feminism and corporate diversity, she is forced to face her worst fears or risk losing her job on her first day; she must reconcile her anxiety with the demands of this fast-paced job, her crumbling personal life, and her contentious relationships with her co-workers.
This show needs to exist because it speaks to countless women like Aman who carry the invisible burden of being brown, woman and anxious.
It is for anxious girls who grew up in a South Asian household believing that love and acceptance had to be earned by people-pleasing, being a perfectionist, and working themselves to the bone at the cost of their mental health.
A lot of brown women, particularly anxious brown women, especially those who grew up in an unstable, tumultuous home, end up living a double life, masking their anxiety, lying to themselves and others to survive. For them, noticing becomes their love language.
Like Aman, I grew up studying my mother, my sister, my aunts, my female friends and cousins, who spent most of their life hiding, living that double life, living with the anxiety of being discovered for their true selves. Anxious Brown Girl is the result of that study, of that love, of simply noticing a woman navigate that double life and her inherited anxiety.
-Aisha Hamid, Writer & Director
SPREAD THE WORD
Please share our campaign via your social media, email, word-of-mouth, however you want! We are grateful we get to bring this to life with your support! Here is some messaging - feel free to copy and paste!
Help bring @anxiousbrowngirlseries to life, made for the anxious girlies by the anxious girlies @_aisha.hamid_ @careercoachramshaa @suhhhloni Join them on @seedandspark seedandspark.com/fund/anxious-brown-girl
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Production Design & Props
Costs $500
To turn our location into our marketing agency's office, PitchHer!
Transportation of equipment
Costs $500
Rental of a U-Haul to transport equipment between filming locations.
Post-Production Fund
Costs $1,000
Help us kickstart our fund to invest in post-production audio and color grading.
Cast & Crew Payment Fund
Costs $2,500
Add to our budget to compensate our team, our shoot will span 10-12 days.
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
Aisha Hamid | Writer & Director
Aisha Hamid is a Pushcart-nominated writer, poet, playwright, and filmmaker from Lahore, Pakistan. She completed her MFA in Writing for the Screen and Stage from Northwestern University in 2025. As a Pritzker Pucker Studio Lab fellow 2024, she wrote, directed and produced her debut short film, Ponytail (2024), that won the New Waves Grand Award at the New York Indie Shorts Awards 2025 and marked her first foray into narrative filmmaking. Her stories explore neurodivergence, dysfunctional family dynamics, intergenerational trauma, and center the everyday lived experiences of brown women.
Ramsha Essa | Co-producer & Lead Actor
Ramsha Essa is an actor, writer, and community builder dedicated to amplifying South Asian voices. She is the founder of SheRises, a community supporting South Asian women through professional coaching, career development, financial literacy, and empowerment-driven events and workshops. She also founded Mestarlet, a creative platform offering branding, PR, and social media strategy for actors and creatives, where she serves as Core Writer and Creative Director, leading storytelling and campaign direction. Ramsha completed an extensive acting coaching program with Mystic Acts and is the author of Heroes Behind the Mask, known for emotionally layered storytelling that explores identity, ambition, trauma, and resilience through a South Asian lens.
Saloni Nahar | Co-producer & Supporting Actor
Outside of producing, Saloni Nahar is an actor, writer, and director. Her writing and directing work can be seen on @nayadinfilms. She also runs the Chicago Actors Hub, a community that connects and uplifts local artists through events and shared resources. She has improv training from The Second City and the Annoyance. Last year, she graduated from the Black Box ACADEMY, a 100-day intensive acting program focused on Meisner training. She is repped by Grossman & Jack Talent.