“Amreeka” Gets NatGeo Deal

Eugene Hernandez by Eugene Hernandez (March 17, 2009)
“Amreeka” Gets NatGeo Deal
A scene from Cherien Dabis' "Amreeka." Image courtesy of the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Cherien Dabis’s 2009 Sundance Film Festival debut “Amreeka” has been acquired by National Geographic Films. Set to open MoMA and The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s annual New Directors/New Films series next week in New York City, the film will get a fall ‘09 release by National Geographic.

Dabis has a history with NatGeo. She was a receipient of the organization’s All Roads Film Festival Project Seed Grant for her short, “Make A Wish,” which screened at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.

The film is described as the story 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.”

Written and directed by Dabis, the film was produced by Christina Piovesan and Paul Barkin and Alicia Sams, Cherien Dabis and Greg Keever were executive producers; Liz Jarvis and Al-Zain Al-Sabah were co-producers.

Rena Ronson and Jerome Duboz, of William Morris Independent, negotiated the sale representing E1 Entertainment International, which has international rights.   Tiffany Leclere and Kattie Evans handled negotiations for NGE.

posted on March 17, 2009
Films to Snag
Comments
1
aiw4341 says on August 24, 2009 at 9:03am

This sounds like a fantastic story. Hopefully it will not be full of stereotypes.

2
AngelaE8654 says on March 17, 2009 at 7:52pm

I’ll bet this is a pretty decent movie.  I’d be interested in seeing how a High School kid with this background gets along with other kids and how this family does in small town Illinois, which doesn’t seem like the “land of milk and honey” to me.  LOL


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