Amreeka
Filmmaker: Cherien Dabis
USA / 2009 / 96 minutes / English & Arabic
Opening Weekend Date: 13 May 2011
A universal journey into the lives of a family of immigrants and first-generation teenagers caught between their heritage and the new world in which they now live and the bittersweet search for a place to call home.
Amreeka chronicles the adventures of Muna, a single mother who leaves the West Bank with Fadi, her teenage son, with dreams of an exciting future in the promised land of small town Illinois. After an incident at customs begins their exile badly, they join Muna's sister and family in Illinois. As Fadi navigates high school hallways the way he used to move through military checkpoints, the indomitable Muna scrambles together a new life cooking up falafel burgers as well as hamburgers at the local White Castle, although she has two degrees and 15 years' experience in banking. It's spring, 2003, and the US invades Iraq. While friends come from unlikely places, how Fadi will respond to American youth culture and how Muna will sort things out with her family are the rest of the story.
"A culture-clash dramedy whose background in Middle-East conflict is leavened with vibrant energy, balanced politics..." Variety