Jerusalem Film Festival - Synopsis of David + Layla

http://newrozfilms.com/jerusalem%20ff_%20view.htm:

As shown on Jerusalem Film Festival JFF site:

DAVID & LAY LA*
USA/Kurdistan-Iraq

written, produced & directed by Jay Jonroy

Co-producers: Gill Holland, Isen Robbins, Aimee Schoof

USA/Kurdistan-Iraq

Newroz Films, New York

Production:
Newroz Films

Script:
Jay Jonroy

Cinematography:
Harlan Bosmajian

With:
David Moscow, Shiva Rose, Callie Thorne…

Composers: Richard Horowitz, John Lissauer

English (some Kurdish, Hebrew, Arabic.) 106 min

David is a New York TV producer, a nice Jewish boy with a demanding mother and a Jewish American Princess for a fiancée. In a chance meeting he lays his eyes on Layla, and before you even get a chance to marvel at her charms, the two are already in love.

Layla is a Kurdish refugee up for deportation, and if that’s not enough, the two families aren’t too excited about sharing their DNA. Now the two young people must decide whether to listen to their hearts or to let the constraints of family and politics run their lives.

The events of the last years have sharpened the gaps in our multi-cultural world, coloring the differences in virtually irreconcilable tones. Jay Jonroy, who comes from a Kurdish family that fled Iraq during Saddam’s regime, approaches this heavy socio-political topic with just the proper amount of playfulness.

He places the cultural and political dilemmas into the formula of a romantic comedy and from the first shot approaches the prejudices of each of the clans with a smile.

To this positive energy you can add the charming performance of the actors in the main role, the fast-paced plot and the way in which the soundtrack of Kurdish, Klezmer and Jazz music fuses perfectly between East and West."


* Film was invited to 2006 JFF. Apparently filmmakers could not attend due to last minute program changes clashing with prior commitments.