Amreeka
UK PREMIERE
Filmmaker: Cherien Dabis
USA/Canada/Kuwait / 2008 / 97 min
Awards: Winner: FIPRESCI Prize, Cannes; Best Arabic Film, Cairo International Film Festival
ICA Cinema 1, Sat March 6, 8.30pm & ICA Cinema 2, Wed March 10, 6.30pm
Uplifting realism charting a mother and son’s immigration from Palestine to the USA in a post 9/11 world.
Palestinian mum Muna and her teenager son Fadi leave their troubled homeland to start a new life with relatives in Illinois. Homesick yet optimistic upon arriving in the stretching US suburbs, feeling snow on their faces, tackling crucial fashion-choices, and facing the harshness of job rejections and high school violence in a post-9/11 world, the pair chart their first steps of American life with grit and panache. A thought-provoking and ultimately uplifting film.
“Amreeka glows with the truth and magic of everyday life and signals the arrival of an exciting, new directorial talent" Sundance Film Festival 2009
Cherien Dabis
Palestinian yet brought up in the US, writer director Cherien Dabis has made several shorts including Make A Wish (2006), and has travelled the film festivals of the world with them, picking up prestigious awards at Tribeca, Rotterdam and Chicago, to name three. Cherien also writes and produces for TV (The L-Word).