Drafthouse Films acquires “Amira & Sam” romantic comedyAugust 29, 2014 - 18:52 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - Drafthouse Films has acquired U.S. distribution rights to Sean Mullin's romantic comedy “Amira & Sam” which stars Martin Starr and Dina Shihabi as the title characters, as well as Paul Wesley, TheWrap reported. Sam (Starr) is an honorable army vet who, while visiting his old unit's Iraqi translator in New York, meets Amira (Shihabi), the translator's niece and an illegal immigrant. After Amira has an unfortunate encounter with the police, Sam reluctantly takes her in while she sorts out her immigration status. Their begrudging connection burgeons into an unlikely romance until Amira is threatened with deportation and Sam is forced to make a critical decision. Wesley plays Sam's cousin, while Laith Nakli (“The Visitor”) plays Amira's uncle. The cast also includes David Rasche (“Burn After Reading”). “Amira and Sam” had its world premiere earlier this year at the Seattle International Film Festival and will soon screen at Forever Fest in Austin. The film is the first feature written and directed by Sean Mullin from Five By Eight Productions. It was produced by Terry Leonard from Strongman and Erich Lochner and Matt Miller from Vanishing Angle, and executive produced by James Ponsoldt and Meg Montagnino-Jarrett & Peter Sobiloff from Hole in One Productions. “Amira & Sam is the rare kind of festival discovery. It goes beyond what you expect and becomes something truly exciting and special. We are proud to get a chance to release this film and really believe there's a big audience out there for this gem,” said Drafthouse Films executive James Emanuel Shapiro. “Most soldier-coming-home-from-war films deal with soldiers battling PTSD, and so I wanted to flip that well-worn premise on its head and ask: what if the soldier who returns is fine, but it's his country that's lost its mind,” said Mullin, a West Point graduate and Army veteran. “It's not often that you find a distributor with as much passion about your film as your filmmaking team, but that's exactly what we've found with Drafthouse Films,” added Lochner. “We're thrilled to be partnering with them.” “Amira & Sam” will screen in select theaters across North America and will be released on a variety of VOD platforms and digital, DVD and Blu-ray formats in early 2015. Top stories The creative crew of the Public TV had chosen 13-year-old Malena as a participant of this year's contest. She called on others to also suspend their accounts over the companies’ failure to tackle hate speech. Penderecki was known for his film scores, including for William Friedkin’s “The Exorcist”, Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining”. The festival made the news public on March 19, saying that “several options are considered in order to preserve its running” Partner news | Turkey extends military presence in Azerbaijan The Turkish parliament has adopted a bill submitted by Recep Tayyip Erdogan to extend the mandate of Turkish troops. Russia to begin assessing migrant workers' speaking skills Rosobrnadzor is planning to change the Russian language exam for migrant workers and include an assessment of speaking skills Armenian, Saudi Foreign Minister meet in Riyadh The two commended the positive dynamics of the development of political dialogue between Armenia and Saudi Arabia Pashinyan: Azerbaijan’s proximity shouldn’t worry border residents At the same time, he said that he “does not guarantee [the security of villagers] one hundred percent”. |