National Geographic
Entertainment has purchased film festival favorite
Amreeka
, Cherien Dabis's comedy about an immigrant family living
in Illinois.
National Geographic
will distribute the film about Muna, a single immigrant mother
who brings her teenage son to live in America, where she flips
burgers at a local White Castle while cooking up falafel
burgers on the side. Nisreen Faour stars as Muna, and
Melkar Muallen plays her 16-year-old son. Also in the
cast are Hiam Abbass, Alia Shawkat, Yussef Abu-Warda, and
Joseph Ziegler.
Dabis, an out lesbian,
received the National Geographic's All Roads Film Festival
Project Seed Grant for her short film
Make a Wish
, which premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.