Malia Obama (sorry, Malia Ann) is premiering her first film at Sundance

Hollywood’s various and sundry nepo babies choose to approach their status in a variety of ways. Some embrace their Hollywood heritage, while others will distance themselves from their parents or try to obscure their famous relations. Malia Obama, for instance, is apparently dropping the “Obama” for her Sundance Film Festival debut, instead presenting her short film under the moniker “Malia Ann.” Of course, no name change is going to hide the fact that she’s the daughter of former president Barack Obama, but this is nevertheless her prerogative as an artist!

If you’re curious, Malia’s movie is called The Heart, which is “an odd little story, somewhat of a fable, about a man grieving the death of his mother after she leaves him an unusual request in her will,” she says in a Sundance “Meet the Artist” segment. “The film is about lost objects and lonely people and forgiveness and regret, but I also think it works hard to uncover where tenderness and closeness can exist in those things,” she goes on to say. “We hope you enjoy the film and it makes you feel a bit less lonely, or at least reminds you not to forget about the people who are.”

Malia’s most recent credit was working in the writers room on Donald Glover’s Prime Video series Swarm. The Heart was one of the first projects under Glover’s recently-launched production company, Gilga. Speaking with GQ last year, Glover revealed the advice he gave the former First Daughter on her first film: “The first thing we did was talk about the fact that she will only get to do this once. You’re Obama’s daughter. So if you make a bad film, it will follow you around.”

Before becoming a Donald Glover protégé, Malia began her entertainment career as an intern at The Weinstein Company and worked on the set of Girls; she later served as a production assistant on the Halle Berry series Extant. Girls creator Lena Dunham, Swarm showrunner Janine Nabers, and Berry all had positive things to say about working with Malia, noting that she was smart, talented, and an enthusiastic worker. However, while Berry said in 2017 (via Refinery29) that she “had wild respect” for Malia’s work ethic, “everybody couldn’t really see her as a PA although she tried and tried to be one, we just couldn’t really see her as one. But to her credit, she tried very hard to be one.” Now that she’s older and going by Malia Ann, perhaps those industry folks will be better able to see her as a writer-director in her own right.