Maryam
Maryam ★★½ 2000
High school senior Maryam (Parris) considers herself a typical New Jersey teen, circa 1979. She doesn't think much about her Iranian or Muslim heritage and works her way around some of her father's cultural strictures. But then the Iran hostage crisis provokes knee-jerk hostility from her classmates and Maryam's fundamentalist cousin Ali (Ackert) arrives from Tehran to pursue his college studies. Maryam's father feels compelled to take in the orphaned Ali for unhappy family reasons Maryam is only learning. Ali causes tensions to rise within while Maryam and her family also try to cope with the tensions they experience in their community as the hostage crisis continues. 90m/C VHS, DVD . Marriam Parris, David Ackert, Shaun Toub, Shohreh Aghdashloo; D: Ramin Serry; W: Ramin Serry; C: Harlan Bosmajian; M: Ahrin Mishram.