May 7, 2008

The Muslim Public Affairs Council's Hollywood Bureau invites you to a special free screening of the widely acclaimed film "The Visitor" on Monday, May 12th at the University of Southern California. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Executive Producer and 2008 Media Award honoree Omar Amanat.

Please RSVP for this FREE event via email at hollywood@mpac.org or call (213) 383-3443.

"THE VISITOR" SCREENING
Monday, May 12, 2008
7:00 p.m.
University of Southern California
Taper Hall Room 102
(click here for campus map)
3501 Trousdale Parkway
Los Angeles, CA 90089
Q&A with Executive Producer Omar Amanat

"The Visitor" is a story about a widower and Connecticut college economic professor lost in his own life. He finds his existence shaken up when he becomes friends with a pair of illegal immigrants, one of whom has recently threatened with deportation by U.S. immigration authorities.

"The Visitor" is not just a story of people from opposite places in the world coming together. It becomes a story about American lives and how we can so easily lose touch with the relative ease of our own existence. Disaster strikes when one of the immigrants is picked up by the police over a misunderstanding and soon descends into a labyrinthine immigration bureaucracy. Though "The Visitor" is centered on these relationships between people, it also offers a critique of the devouring, inhumane gears of an immigration system rigged for maximum difficulty. Everyone in "The Visitor" is adrift in some way, either geographically or psychologically.

Executive Producer Omar Amanat recently began to explore using the power of film to achieve social change and co-founded Participant Productions, a $200 million feature film company with a mission to "make films that will change the world." Among the recent highly- acclaimed films Amanat has served as either executive producer or producer for include "The Kite Runner" and "Charlie Wilson's War."

Launched last spring, MPAC's Hollywood Bureau provides expertise and consultation to television networks and film studios in order to enhance accuracy and sensitivity of portrayals related to Islam, Muslims and related issues. Click here to find out how you can support the Bureau's work.