4 titles on 1 video, Satire | DVD
Director: Zarqa Nawaz
Ethnicity: South Asian
Subjects: Culture Clash, Human/Civil Rights, Media, New Immigrants and Refugees (Past & Present), Racism
Through humor and a sense of the absurd, Zarqa Nawaz (Little Mosque on the Prarie) spins four entertaining vignettes sure to stimulate dialogue about how the “terrorist” stereotype has the power to influence society as well as its victims.
BBQ MUSLIMS 1995, 5 minutes
In the days following the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, there was a media frenzy pointing fingers at the North American Muslim community. Several weeks later, Oklahoma police arrested Timothy McVeigh, a white American. The cruel irony of that historic moment inspired this offbeat tale of two Muslim American brothers’ backyard barbecue mishaps.
DEATH THREAT 1998, 19 minutes
A young Muslim woman has written an appallingly bad Harlequin-type novel and is struggling to find a publisher. Depressed, frustrated and irritated after receiving her 59th rejection, she decides that controversy is the only way to catch a publisher’s eye, but her exploitation of cultural stereotypes eventually backfires on her.
FRED’S BURQA 2005, 5 minutes
Take bad debt, a sunny day perfect for hanging out laundry, a troublesome hip replacement surgery and get true love…at first, partly obscured, sight. A stolen burqa leads to mistaken identity, a career change and…true love.
RANDOM CHECK 2005, 10 minutes
Arrested at the airport, as the result of racial profiling, and late for his wedding, a desperate young man uses the power of the media to set him free, only to become the subject of another “random check” en route to his honeymoon.