LAUGH WITH AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR SHAMIM SARIF AS SHE TAKES US BEHIND-THE-SCENES OF HER LIFE AND MOVIES

Wrote the Book, Made the Movie, Raised the Kids, Now the Blog! is the hilarious and original new hardback from acclaimed author/screenwriter/director Shamim Sarif. A collection of the humorous blogs and pictures that earned her such a faithful following on her site www.shamimsarif.com and on her , the book also promises more than 70 previously unseen photos from the sets of her movies The World Unseen and I Can’t Think Straight. These are produced in a beautiful hardback format with full colour photos throughout.

10% of all sales will go to Lisa Ray, lead actress in both movies, to help in her battle against a rare form of cancer.

SYNOPSIS: ‘I CAN’T THINK STRAIGHT’

Tala, a London-based Palestinian, is preparing for her elaborate Middle Eastern wedding when she meets Leyla, a young British Indian woman who is dating her best friend. Spirited Christian Tala and shy Muslim Leyla could not be more different from each other, but the attraction is immediate and goes deeper than friendship. As Tala’s wedding day approaches, simmering tensions come to boiling point and the pressure mounts for Tala to be true to herself.

SYNOPSIS: ‘THE WORLD UNSEEN’

Free-spirited Amina has broken all the rules of her own conventional Indian community, and the new apartheid-led government, by running a café with Jacob her ‘coloured’ business partner. When she meets Miriam, a young traditional wife and mother, their unexpected attraction pushes Miriam to question the rules that bind her. When Amina helps Miriam’s sister-in-law to hide from the police, a chain of events is set in motion that changes both women forever. In a system that divides white from black and women from men, what chance is there for an unexpected love to survive?

About Enlightenment Productions:

Enlightenment Productions is a multi-media entertainment company formed in partnership between Hanan Kattan and Shamim Sarif. Based in London and Los Angeles, the company is dedicated to producing, distributing and selling entertaining independent feature films of integrity and individuality, as well as other entertainment media related to its film productions; such as books and soundtracks.

For more information on the book, and to read extracts please see:

http://www.enlightenment-productions.com/index.php?page=and-now-the-blog

Orders can be placed on Amazon or at:

http://www.enlightenment-productions.com/howtoget.php?page=paperback

Aaron Kaplan

Kapital Entertainment

9200 Sunset, Suite 430

Los Angeles CA 90069

Shamim Sarif is available for interview. For further information please contact: [email protected]

PRESENTING LIKE the love child of a quality offering from Film4 Productions and one of the edgier romantic comedies out of Hollywood, director Shamim Sarif’s I Can’t Think Straight has serious cross-over potential. Its appeal begins with a set of ethnic characters that happen to be extremely wealthy and Westernized — always a plus with your regular Joe and Josephine — and continues with Sarif’s talent for blending the unfamiliar into the readily accessible parameters of commercial entertainment. This may be the story of two lesbian lovers reared in the religions and cultures of far away lands, but the movie looks and acts like a vehicle for Debra Messing.

If that sounds like criticism, it is not. For although this is a mainstream-style film, it is still better than the usual canned offerings on minorities, whether sexual or ethnic. Even more to the point: With its well-painted exotic locales, fancy clothes and regular doses of silly humor, it is girls-night-in entertaining, even with a few areas in need of firmer editing. There should always be room for a romantic comedy offering a bit of glamour and wit.

Of course, being light-hearted fare, the star-crossed lovers never have to go to any great lengths to be together — they aren’t trapped within the borders of Jordan, for example — but the obstacles they do confront, particularly disapproving family members, are readily accessible to virtually any audience. And the families are, in many ways, what make this film. It is a trio of women, Antonia Frering, Siddiqua Akhtar and Nina Wadia, as two mothers and a housekeeper, respectively, who give us the best giggles of the piece and ultimately its’ flavor and charm. Sarif knows exactly how to deliver a comedy confection especially when competing ethnicities are part of the fun. And staying true to her own novel on which the film is based, she declines to inject the kind of back-flipping plot devices jammed into every rom-com produced by Hollywood these days.

The lovers themselves, Lisa Ray as the feisty Jordanian-raised Palestinian, Tala, and Sheetal Sheth as the soulful London-dwelling Indian Muslim, Leyla, are an attractive and compelling pair even if Sheth is rather more convincing in her amorous angst. Still, with an eye on the bigger commercial prize, this is lesbian-lite with nothing racier than a few relatively chaste cuddles set to nice music. And yet, there is something sincerely refreshing about any slickly produced movie that doesn’t exploit its women amid an improbable plot.