Jimmy Vestvood is an independent Hollywood movie featuring the Iranian American comedian Maz Jobrani.The movie is about an Iranian who wins a green cardlottery ticket and moves to the United States, wherehe becomes an "Amerikan Hero."
"We wanted to do a movie where the guy who savesthe day in the end of the movie is of Middle Eastern descent," Jobrani said, "because as you know, ninetimes out of 10 when you see a Middle Easterner in an American movie, he is saying, 'I will killyou in the name of Allah.' It’s usually a terrorist or a bad guy, so we said how about a movie that’s made in America that actually has the guy who saves the day."
It took Jobrani and his co-writer 10 years to write the movie, but only 18 days to film it in Los Angeles. Maz says no big studios were willing to produce the movie, so he and his partnershad to do it independently.
"Hollywood does not know that there is an audience for this type of film, but I know through mystandup comedy that there is an audience that wants to see Middle Easterners in a positiveand fun light," . "Not just Middle Easterners, but also Americans who come to my shows who want to see a different side of Middle Easterners."
But he worried about the reaction of American audiences to some jokes in the moive.
但他担心美国观众对于影片中一些玩笑的反应。
Jimmy Vestvood now is playing in Washington D.C and LA theatre and will be released in NewYork on May 20th and San Francisco on May 29th.
"I think that Americans are very smart and I think that we underestimate a lot of Americans," "There’s a lot of Americans who are more internationally minded; they are curious about otherparts of the world."
"I know that because of my shows, when I do live shows, I look at the audience it’s like 50percent just white Americans, black Americans, Asian Americans, other Americans than MiddleEasterners."