RSVP to ‘Ali’s Wedding’, Australia’s First Muslim Romantic Comedy

In 2017, it feels oddly generous for a young Muslim Australian to make a romantic comedy set in Brunswick, Melbourne. While offshore detention centres are filled with Middle Eastern refugees who have nowhere to go, a young outspoken Muslim activist is literally chased out of the country for expressing an opinion on her Facebook page, and an elected federal politician jokingly wears a burqa to parliament, Ali's Wedding dares to be lighthearted and optimistic.

"I think we needed an antidote to the craziness of the world we're living in," says Osamah Sami, who wrote and stars as a fictionalised version of himself in the autobiographical film."Who doesn't want to feel happy, feel joy, laugh? Anger will only lead us into an abyss. If I just hold onto anger and resentment, I'm only going to plunge deeper into that abyss."

Ali's Wedding is set in a difficult, tumultuous period of Sami's early twenties. Pressured by his family and community to become a doctor, he lies about having aced the notorious University of Melbourne medical entrance exam and attends class there for an entire year without actually being enrolled. Meanwhile, he falls in love with a beautiful and brilliant Lebanese classmate… while his parents arrange his marriage to someone else.

As all this is going on, life at the mosque—where his father is a respected cleric—continues with the staging of a satirical musical about Saddam Hussein in which Sami (or Ali, as he's known in the film) plays the dictator. When the musical is a success, he and his friends are invited to perform it in the United States. Unfortunately, they're detained upon entering the country, interrogated for 26 hours on suspected terror charges, then deported.

As Ali's lies precariously stack up and begin to collapse in on themselves, the film becomes somewhat stressful to watch. But even its darker moments are successfully played for laughs—watch out for a very Melbourne AFL joke in the airport interrogation scene. Sami says he would prefer to gently inform his audiences about his culture and community instead of scaring them off.

"Comedy gives light. We're shedding light on a community that has been spoken of but not heard from, and we're showing people who are like you or I," he says. "This whole 'us or them', I don't believe in it. We're all connected, our emotions, we all feel them regardless of where we've come from, our faith."

Australia's immigrant stories are what make us, and Ali's Wedding will resonate strongly with any first generation kid feeling crushed by that extraordinary pressure to flourish in the country their parents have sacrificed so much to reach. Sami notes that audiences so far have indicated this to be the case: "I had a 21-year-old Ukrainian-Jewish girl who came up to me and said it was her story, there was an Asian boy who said it, a 65-year-old Iraqi guy. A spectrum of people connected with it because they identified with those emotions—within a few minutes you forget it's set in an Islamic community because you're so invested in the journey."

I can't help but disagree just a little. For many Australians it will be impossible to forget, right now, what a film like this means. How its very existence feels political, in an uplifting and positive way. There's much to be said about making a relatable, human film. But it should also be okay to tell a story that will be foreign to many people, one that might help middle white Australia understand things we're not necessarily exposed to every day.

"We did really want to take people's hands and bring them inside our homes," Sami agrees. "And say, 'Come and have a cup of tea with us. Stop glaring over our fences and come into our backyard. There's not going to be beers, but there'll be tea. Baklava instead of sausage rolls.'

"That's what the film does—take that conversation about immigrants forward. It's a political film without the politics."

As much as it may be an education for white Australian audiences, the movie is also a heartfelt love letter to Ali's close knit Shiite community in Melbourne. In many ways it is made for them—several members also volunteered to be extras.

"We wanted to be authentic and real, and we wanted the community to take ownership of the story. People at the Arab Film Festival in Sydney who have seen themselves finally represented have come up to me in tears, saying 'This is so special, you've immortalised our stories on celluloid forever.' And I felt really privileged to hear all those comments, because it's time. It's time we see each other as fellow people, not as others."

In a quiet and sensitive way, the film deals with issues that have, at least publicly, plagued Australia's diverse Muslim communities. One of these relates to gender. Diana, Ali's love interest in the film, finds herself ostracised from the community for her choice to pursue a medical degree. In contrast, his arranged wife Yomna channels her efforts into succeeding at marriage. Both women have significant autonomy, although the choices they make are very different.

"When it comes to gender and a number of issues, I didn't want to come out and say, 'Hey, look at us, we're all amazing people. All immigrants are great, all refugees are wonderful, all Muslims are amazing.' I wanted to show us with our flaws. We are fallible. I think reflecting that was important. Because, as in our society as a whole, there is a lot of gender inequality [in the Muslim community]. But some women in our community are very, very strong. We wanted to represent something that was truthful and real, without judgment," says Sami.

"When you think of Muslims, often—because we're painted with a broad stroke—you think we're a homogenous people. But we're not. There are colours in us that the rainbow would be envious of."

There's universality, too. Now in his early thirties and a successful writer and actor, Sami isn't keen on forging any more entrance scores. Still, he laughingly admits there's continuing pressure from his family to get a real job.

"I'm enjoying some success now [the film just won the prestigious $100,000 CinefestOz prize], but mum still occasionally taps me on the shoulder and suggests it would be really nice if I do a PhD or something."

'Ali's Wedding' is in cinemas nationally tomorrow.

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