Ali's Wedding

Ali's Wedding is a 2017 Australian romantic comedy feature film from Matchbox Pictures. It is directed by Jeffrey Walker and written by Osamah Sami and stars Sami, Helana Sawires, Don Hany and Ryan Corr. Sami has been quoted as saying that the film is "history making, the first Muslim rom-com. This movie will hopefully pave the way for many other similar stories, not just from the Muslim community but from other communities and other minorities in our society." He said that the "affectionate and poignant story of love" was trying to cast a more positive light on Muslim-Australian life.

Plot
Ali (Osamah Sami), the charming and musically-talented son of an Iraqi Shia cleric (Don Hany), struggles to make the right life choices despite the best of intentions. He wants to be with the girl, Dianne (Helana Sawires), he loves, but he's been promised to another girl at his father's mosque. He wants to be the great doctor that the community expects him to be, but he doesn't get the marks. Above all, he wants to make his father proud.

To live up to these impossible expectations, he lies about his academic achievements, and then his quest to please his father spirals out of control, with amusing and poignant consequences.

Cast

 * Osamah Sami as Ali Albasri
 * Don Hany as Sheik Mahdi
 * Helana Sawires as Dianne Mohsen
 * Frances Duca as Zahra
 * Khaled Khalafalla as Moe Greene
 * Asal Shenavehzadeh as Ramona
 * Majid Shokor as Seyyed Ghaffar
 * Shayan Salehian as Luay
 * Ghazi Alkinani as Abu Faisal
 * Rodney Afif as Haj Karim
 * Maha Wilson as Yomna
 * Natalie Gamsu as Fatima
 * Robert Rabiah as Mohsen
 * Rahel Romahn as Ayoob
 * Aljin Abella as Chris
 * Ryan Corr as Wazza
 * Jaafar Allamy as Jamal Al Hilfi
 * Spencer McLaren as Tony

Release
Ali's Wedding premiered at the Adelaide Film Festival in October 2016. It also showed at the Sydney Film Festival on 8 June 2017.

Reception
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 92% based on 26 reviews, with an average rating of 7/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Ali's Wedding uses its very specific setting to explore universal ideas about relationships -- and in delightfully smart, funny fashion." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 64 out of 100, based on 4 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Music

 * see Ali's Wedding (soundtrack)