‘To Live and Die and Live’ Review: Alienated Filmmaker Can’t Go Home Again in Grim Drama

Sundance 2023: Writer-director Qasim Basir leaves a lot of promising plot threads and character elements on the table in his latest feature

To Live and Die and Live
Sundance Institute

Sundance alum Qasim Basir (2018’s “A Boy, A Girl, A Dream”) returns to Park City with “To Live and Die and Live,” an endlessly grim tale about a filmmaker’s homecoming to Detroit for his father’s funeral and some unfinished business. This is set against a palette of the prevailing sense of alienation he experiences within his extended family, creative circles, and the Muslim community. 

Muhammad (Amin Joseph, “Snowfall”) first emerges, sobbing, from a kaleidoscopic blur that turns out to be illuminated advertisements along an airport terminal’s moving walkway. In a split second his mood shifts. After a quick visit with his drug dealer, he makes his way to a club where purple-haired Asia (Skye P.

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