Welcome to our 2014 Festival Staff Picks column! We’ll be posting some first looks at Festival Films to look out for on the 2014 Film Schedule. Check back to the AFF blog for new Staff Picks each week!
Jimmy Vestvood: Amerikan Hero
As a child of immigrants who often gets mistaken for being an Iranian-American, I feel like this film really spoke to me in a special way. Just kidding. You don’t have to be any type of person to guffaw at least thrice during my pick for this year’s Austin Film Festival, Jimmy Vestvood, Amerikan Hero.
Comedy Mazter Maz Jobrani plays Jimmy Vestwood, a lovable, ambitious dreamer who after winning a green card lottery, migrates to the U.S. from Iran with his mother, hoping to achieve his life-long dream of becoming a Private Investigator. Instead, what awaits him is a job as a security, or sekurity guard and an accidental involvement with the bad guys who try and paint him as a terrorist to start a world war. Jimmy Vestvood, personifies the narrative of the American dream, working hard to become a private investigator and taking us on a silly and surprisingly suspenseful ride, pausing a few times for gags that’ll make you laugh so hard your stomach hurts. Co-written by Amir Ohebsion and Mr. Jobrani himself, the film came into fruition with the help of crowd funding. And I think I can speak from our entire staff, we are so grateful to this outstanding team of writers along with director Jonathan Kesselman for bringing us a tale starring the first Iranian-Amerikan hero.
So do your duty to this great country (and to yourself) and add this one to your schedule.
-Linzy Beltran, Executive Director Assistant
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