After slowly testing the grounds of the theatrical distribution game with a trio of documentary titles (March of the Penguins, U23D), National Geographic Entertainment have picked up a comedy?! Yes, a comedy. The company that we would normally associate with nature films and beautiful photography in its nearly century-old gold border magazine has picked up a bit of fiction in Cherien Dabis’ Amreeka. I skipped on this feature which had its preem at Sundance and will be the opening film for the New Directors/New Films later this month.
Curiously, this is not the first time that National Geographic works with the young filmmaker. Dabis was a recipient of a National Geographic’s All Roads Film Festival Project Seed Grant for her short film “Make A Wish,”.
This tells the adventures of Muna, an indomitable immigrant single mother, who dreams of a new life for herself and Fadi, her teenage son, in the promised land of small town Illinois. In America, as her son navigates high school hallways the way he used to move through military checkpoints, the resourceful Muna scrambles together an upwardly mobile new life cooking up falafel burgers as well as the usual hamburgers at the local White Castle.
The picture will be released in the Fall.
