Towelhead is a 2007 black comedy film written and directed by Alan Ball and based on Alicia Erian's novel of the same name. The film made its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival on September 8, 2007 under the name Nothing is Private. The film, like the book, touches on issues of sexual awakening, privacy, and race. Set in 1990 amidst the First Gulf War, Towelhead tells the coming-of-age story of a 13-year-old Lebanese American girl named Jasira . She first lives with her mother in Syracuse, New York, but when her mother's live-in boyfriend helps Jasira shave her pubic hair, her... mother sends Jasira to live with her old-fashioned and domineering Lebanese father Rifat in suburban Houston, Texas. There, Jasira experiences a sexual awakening, sparked in part by the adult magazines she finds when baby-sitting the next-door neighbor boy Zach Vuoso . Jasira is alienated from her father: he is strict and does not allow her to use tampons; also he prefers spending time with his new girlfriend rather than with her. She has mixed feelings about Zach's father Mr. Vuoso .
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| Release date: | September 8, 2007 |
| Directed by: | Alan Ball |
| Rated: |  |
| Runtime: | 124 Minutes |
| Producer: | Alan Ball, Ted Hope |
| Editor: | Andy Keir |
| Music by: | Thomas Newman |
| Cinematography: | Newton Thomas Sigel |
| Screenplay by: | Alan Ball |
| Adapted from: | Towelhead |