''Amreeka'' is a 2009 independent film written and directed by first-time director Cherien Dabis. It stars Nisreen Faour, Melkar Muallem, Hiam Abbass, Alia Shawkat, Yussuf Abu-Warda, Joseph Ziegler, and Miriam Smith. ''Amreeka'' documents the lives of a Palestinian American family in both the

West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

and Post-9/11 suburban

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

. It premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and opened to critical praise at several other important venues. National Geographic Entertainment bought all theatrical and home entertainment rights to ''Amreeka'' after its debut at Sundance''.''

Plot

Muna Farah ( Nisreen Faour) is a divorced Palestinian Christian mother raising her teenage son Fadi (Melkar Muallem). She works for a bank in

Ramallah Ramallah ( , ; ) is a Palestinians, Palestinian city in the central West Bank, that serves as the administrative capital of the State of Palestine. It is situated on the Judaean Mountains, north of Jerusalem, at an average elevation of abov ...

, part of the

Palestinian territories The occupied Palestinian territories, also referred to as the Palestinian territories, consist of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip—two regions of the former Mandate for Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine ...

. Each day after work, Muna picks up Fadi from school and crosses through an Israeli checkpoint in order to get to their home in

Bethlehem Bethlehem is a city in the West Bank, Palestine, located about south of Jerusalem, and the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate. It had a population of people, as of . The city's economy is strongly linked to Tourism in the State of Palesti ...

. She lives with her aging mother and has occasional visits from her brother Samer. One day after arriving home, Muna discovers she has been awarded an American green card through the lottery. Although she initially considered declining the offer, Muna reconsiders after she and Fadi are harassed at the checkpoint by Israeli soldiers. They arrive in the United States shortly after the 2003 invasion of Iraq to stay with her sister's family in

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

. After a difficult time with

customs Customs is an authority or Government agency, agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling International trade, the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out ...

, Muna is reunited with her sister, Raghda Halaby ( Hiam Abbass), physician brother-in-law Nabeel (Yussuf Abu-Warda) and their three children Salma ( Alia Shawkat), Rana (Jenna Kawar), and Lamis (Selena Haddad). Later, however, Muna discovers that a box of cookies was confiscated during the customs search and is horrified: the box contained all of her life savings. Muna thus searches for work but is disappointed to discover that her multiple degrees and work experience do not guarantee the kind of employment she seeks. She finally takes a job at White Castle. Too ashamed to tell her family the truth, she pretends to have been hired by the bank next door to White Castle. She maintains the facade with the help of an employee of the bank next door to White Castle (Miriam Smith) and her blue-haired high school drop-out co-worker, Matt (Brodie Sanderson). Meanwhile, Muna begins to discover that her sister's family has been experiencing difficulties in the Post-9/11 and Iraq war atmosphere of the United States. The family receives anonymous threats in the mail and Nabeel is continually losing patients from his medical practice. They are also behind on their mortgage and risk losing their home. The strain of living in this atmosphere becomes so severe that Raghda and Nabeel temporarily "separate" and Nabeel moves into the basement of the family home. Later, when some of the students make derogatory remarks to Fadi, he gets into a fight and his mother is called to meet with the school's principal Mr. Novatski ( Joseph Ziegler). Shortly after the meeting, Mr. Novatski sees Muna waiting for her sister and insists on driving her to work. He apologizes to her for the behavior of the students towards Fadi saying that they are influenced by the media's depiction of

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

s. Muna is dismayed by the stereotypes he describes to her. She also informs him that she and Fadi are not Muslims, but are rather from a minority community. Embarrassed by his assumption, Mr. Novatski apologizes and says that he is a minority as well as an American Jew whose grandparents were

Polish Jews The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jews, Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the long pe ...

. She is surprised to learn that he is Jewish. Muna asks him to drop her off at the bank but forgets her purse, an act which leads him to discover that she works secretly at White Castle. Deciding to have a meal there, they discover that they both are divorced. On another day, local high school students make discriminatory remarks about Fadi to Muna while she is working in White Castle. She chases them out, only to slip on a drink one of the boys poured on the floor and fall flat on her back. Matt immediately calls her family who then discovers her secret. Furious over the incident, Fadi gets into a fight with one of the boys and is subsequently arrested. In addition to assault, ambiguous charges are also leveled towards him that are serious enough to prevent Muna from getting him released. Muna contacts Mr. Novatski who rushes to the police station and tells the officers that the accusations are without merit and that he will assume responsibility for Fadi. Fadi is thus released from jail. These events also lead Raghda and Nabeel to reconcile. A little while later, Muna is working at White Castle and her family comes to take her to a Middle Eastern restaurant for dinner. While leaving she bumps into Mr. Novatski and invites him to join them for dinner. Raghda teases Muna when he enters the car and the evening ends with music and dancing.

Cast

Production

Dabis began working on the screenplay for ''Amreeka'' while a graduate student in film at

Columbia University School of the Arts The Columbia University School of the Arts (also known as School of the Arts or SoA) is the fine arts graduate school of Columbia University in Morningside Heights, New York (state), New York. It offers Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degrees in Film, ...

in 2003. Christina Piovesan, a producer in Toronto, read about Dabis in ''Filmmaker Magazine,'' thus leading the two of them to collaborate on '"Amreeka." Over the next three years, Piovesan gathered financing from a number of sources in the Middle East and Canada. Dabis also traveled for months to hold casting auditions in New York,

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

, Dearborn,

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Manitoba. It is centred on the confluence of the Red River of the North, Red and Assiniboine River, Assiniboine rivers. , Winnipeg h ...

, Paris,

Amman Amman ( , ; , ) is the capital and the largest city of Jordan, and the country's economic, political, and cultural center. With a population of four million as of 2021, Amman is Jordan's primate city and is the largest city in the Levant ...

Beirut Beirut ( ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the List of largest cities in the Levant region by populatio ...

Haifa Haifa ( ; , ; ) is the List of cities in Israel, third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area i ...

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

, Bethlehem and Ramallah. In choosing Nisreen Faour for the lead role of Muna, Dabis commented that she "had a sweetness about her ... a kindness and a childlike sense of wonder. There was something about her that was so youthful, and yet, I could still see in her eyes the depth of sadness that her life experience had given her." On the choice of Melkar Muallem as Fadi, Dabis commented that he was, "the son of a Palestinian woman who helped cast the film. He wanted nothing to do with acting—both parents are actors, and he's only interested in

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

. I begged him to audition, and after he did, he wanted the part." Muallem is from

, one of the locations for the film. Dabis also chose to work with film and television actors Hiam Abbass and Alia Shawkat and a theater actor from

, Yussef Abu Warda. Dabis modeled the family after her own, making them Christian Palestinians. Events surrounding the inclusion of a kind high school principal were taken from Dabis' own life. While in high school, serious accusations were leveled at her sister, who was saved by the intervention of the school principal. Dabis chose to make her fictional version of this principal, Mr. Novatski (Joseph Ziegler), a Jewish-American to create parallel experiences related to "immigration and displacement." In another interview Dabis stated that she included this because in the United States Arabs and Jews are friends and "we don't get to see that enough." The scenes in the West Bank were shot on location in Ramallah while the portion of the film set in Illinois was shot in

. Dabis states that she chose to work in Canada rather than the United States because of "the tax incentives combined with the fact that Manitoba offered us provincial equity for shooting the film there. That was huge! It enabled us to close our financing and go into production sooner rather than later." The scenes in the Halaby home were set in the house of a local Palestinian family from Ramallah with three daughters close in age to the characters in the film. White Castle was also "an enthusiastic supporter of the film" and contributed "a truckload of real White Castle supplies."

Music

The closing song of the film was "Jawaz al-safar" ("Passport") by

Marcel Khalife Marcel Khalife (; born 10 June 1950 in Amchit) is a Lebanese musical composer, singer, and oud player. Khalife is considered a folk hero in the Arab world, and he has been described as the "Bob Dylan of the Middle East." Biography In 1983 ...

, based on a poem by

Mahmoud Darwish Mahmoud Darwish (; 13 March 1941 – 9 August 2008) was a Palestinians, Palestinian poet and author who was regarded as Palestine's national poet. In 1988 Darwish wrote the Palestinian Declaration of Independence, which was the formal declarat ...

Critical reception

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, the film had an average score of 73 out of 100, based on 23 reviews, indicating "Generally Favorable" reviews. American critic

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...

gave ''Amreeka'' three and a half out of four stars and described it as "Cherien Dabis's heart-warming and funny first feature."

Awards

2011

2011 Intersections Film Festival *''Official Selection: Opening Night''

2010

2010 Heartland Film Festival *Won: One of ''Top Ten Truly Moving Pictures'' For 2009 2010

Independent Spirit Awards The Independent Spirit Awards, originally known as the FINDIE or Friends of Independents Awards, and later as the Film Independent Spirit Awards, are awards presented annually in Santa Monica, California, to independent filmmakers. Founded in ...

*Nominated: Independent Spirit Award for Best Film *Nominated: Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay *Nominated: Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead – Nisreen Faour 2010

NAACP Image Awards The NAACP Image Awards is an annual awards ceremony presented by the U.S.-based National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to honor outstanding performances in film, television, theatre, music, and literature. The over 40 ...

*Nominated:Outstanding Independent Motion Picture

2009

2009 Cairo International Film Festival * Won: Best Arabic Film – Cherien Dabis (director), Christina Piovesan (producer) * Won: Best Arabic Screenplay – Cherien Dabis (director)

2009 Cannes Film Festival The 62nd Cannes Film Festival took place from 13 May to 24 May 2009. French actress Isabelle Huppert served as jury president for the main competition. Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke won the Palme d'Or, the festival's top prize, for the dram ...

* Won: Fipresci Prize – Cherien Dabis * ''Official Selection'': Directors' Fortnight 2009 Dubai International Film Festival * Won: Muhr Award, Best Actress: Nisreen Faour Gotham Independent Film Awards 2009 *Nominated: Best Feature 2009

National Board of Review of Motion Pictures The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures is a non-profit organization of New York City area film enthusiasts. Its awards, which are announced in early December, are considered the first major harbinger of the awards season, film award ...

*Won: One of Top Ten Independent Films. 2009 New Directors/New Films Festival * ''Official Selection: Opening Night'' 2009 Sundance Film Festival * ''Official Selection: Dramatic Competition Sundance''

2007

The screenplay was presented with the $15,000 Tribeca All Access L'Oréal Paris Women of Worth Vision Award.

DVD

The DVD of the film was released on January 12, 2010. It contains a number of deleted scenes and outtakes. It also includes director Cherien Dabis' short feature, '' Make a Wish'', which premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and received a number of awards at other festivals.

References

External links

* * {{Cherien Dabis 2009 films 2009 drama films American drama films 2000s Arabic-language films Canadian drama films 2000s English-language films English-language Canadian films English-language Kuwaiti films English-language Israeli films English-language Palestinian films Israeli–Palestinian conflict films Kuwaiti drama films Palestinian drama films Films about immigration to the United States Anti-Arabism in Canada Anti-Arabism in the United States 2009 directorial debut films 2009 multilingual films American multilingual films Canadian multilingual films 2000s American films 2000s Canadian films Arabic-language Canadian films Arabic-language American films