Ghazi Albuliwi, the son of Jordanian immigrants, grew up in a largely Italian Catholic neighborhood in south Brooklyn. He majored in media and communication and minored in political science at Hunter College. "I was doing standup comedy at night," he recalls. "and leading a double life that was about to freight-train.

"After college I spent a year not really doing anything. I was staying home watching soaps during the day and renting a lot of movies – low-budget films like Laws of Gravity and The Brothers McMullen. I thought it might be interesting to do a movie based on my life – my comedy routines dealt a lot with my life, religion and politics – and I figured I just needed a camera and sound."

Albuliwi was 22 at the time. Two years later he completed the screenplay to West Bank Brooklyn. Set in Borough Park – which, he says, "has the same feel to it as Israel, with Orthodox Jews and Muslims, mosques and synagogues, side by side" – the film tells the story of four Arab Americans struggling, often hilariously, to navigate a path between the competing demands of tradition and assimilation. Produced and directed by Albuliwi, who also plays one of the four main characters, West Bank was shot on Super 16mm over 14 days for $39,000 and was completed just prior to 9/11. The film was recently acquired by CAVU Pictures, which plans a theatrical release in February 2004.

Albuliwi is already hard at work on his second feature. "It takes place now: we’re at level orange, and we’re hunting for Osama," he says. "It begins with the Iraqi Freedom crusade and ends with the liberation of Iraq, and throughout you have these three friends trying to live their lives and plan for the future, no longer knowing what tomorrow will bring." The film is slated to begin shooting soon.
– Steve Gallagher