Drafthouse Films Acquires Comedic Romance ‘Amira & Sam’

Drafthouse Films has acquired the US distribution rights for Sean Mullin’s debut feature film, “Amira & Sam.” The comedy premiered earlier this year at the Seattle International Film Festival and will be shown at several upcoming fall fests, including the Forever Fest in Austin, the hometown of Drafthouse, a film distribution arm of Alamo Drafthouse Cinema.

Mullin’s film, which Indiewire featured earlier this year as a Project of the Day, stars “Silicon Valley’s” Martin Starr as Sam, Dina Shihabi as Amira and Paul Wesley from “The Vampire Diaries.” The film highlights the unlikely romance between a returning army vet and an undocumented immigrant facing the threat of deportation.

Mullin, an army veteran himself, said he wanted to turn the nail on the head on the stereotype of the returning soldier. “Most soldier-coming-home-from-war films deal with soldiers battling PTSD,” he said in a statement “And so I wanted to flip that well-worn premise on its head and ask: what if the soldier who returns is fine, but it’s his country that’s lost its mind?”

Drafthouse Film executive James Emanuel Shapiro shared his excitement over obtaining the film rights: “‘Amira & Sam’ is the rare kind of festival discovery. It goes beyond what you expect and becomes something truly exciting and special. We are proud to get a chance to release this film and really believe there’s a big audience out there for this gem.” 

“Amira & Sam” will screen in select theaters across the US and will be released on DVD, Blu-ray and digital formats in early 2015.