'Amira & Sam' Challenges Arab Preconceptions

Paul Wesley was on the set of “Before I Disappear” in Manhattan when producer Terry Leonard gave him the script to “Amira & Sam.”

“Read this,” he said to Mr. Wesley, who is best known for starring in the CW network television drama “The Vampire Diaries,” which he is now directing. It was a love story, he quickly realized, and he wanted to know who was cast.

That’s when he got his hands on the audition tape of lead actress Dina Shihabi.

Shooting started in less than two weeks. The budget was a fraction of one “Vampire Diaries” episode. But Mr. Wesley was sold.

“When I saw her, and I knew Martin Starr from ‘Freaks and Geeks’ was on board, that was it,” he said on Sunday morning during an interview at The Maidstone c/o The Living Room in East Hampton during the 22nd annual Hamptons International Film Festival. “I was in. There’s a magic to independent filmmaking that you just don’t get in TV. Apples and oranges.”

The 88-minute feature film made its East Coast premiere last weekend at the festival, ushering in new audiences to watch a modern take on the romantic comedy from writer-director Sean Mullin. He weaves a tale involving Amira (Ms. Shihabi), a spirited Middle Eastern refugee, who meets Sam (Mr. Starr), an Iraq War veteran, in the midst of post-September 11 Manhattan and the age of terrorism.

Now that he is back home, Sam is not fraught with post-traumatic stress, as were so many soldiers. He is struggling with assimilation.

“I wanted to ask, What if the soldier comes home from war and he’s fine,” said Mr. Mullin, who was a first responder at Ground Zero, “but the country lost its f-----g mind? Veterans and immigrants are marginalized in today’s society, and that’s ridiculous. This is a country protected by veterans and founded by immigrants.”

Ms. Shihabi was 18 years old when she moved to the United States from Dubai with dreams of becoming an actor. Like Amira, she has always felt like someone straddling two worlds—behaving as a typical Arab daughter should, versus breaking outside of that box and being her own person.

“That was very exciting for me, as an actor, because I think that is something very relatable,” Ms. Shihabi said. “That’s a very human quality, that we’re all living contradictions. And I had never read anything like it. She doesn’t apologize, never, for anything she does.”

“I love that in a woman,” Mr. Mullin said.

“I love that in a woman, too,” Ms. Shihabi agreed. “And that’s something that I struggle with. It’s easier to say, ‘I’m sorry.’ And growing up in the Middle East, that’s something that’s encouraged in women, in a way, to be more submissive. I loved that about her, and I have that in me now. It was really exciting to be that every day.”

“Fiercely independent,” the director added.

“Never apologizing,” Ms. Shihabi said. “She’s very open and it’s cool to watch. She doesn’t question anything she does. I love her. I love her so much.”