The Brits breaking new ground in New York City

By Sebastian Doggart
Published: 9:22AM BST 21 May 2010

Tribeca has become a major fixture on the calendar of world cinema. And after attending a whirlwind of screenings, round-tables and parties, I can confirm that this year both the Union Jack and the Irish tricolour were flying proudly across its screens.

The comedian and rising British star Omid Djalili was premiering two films. “On the plane home,” he told me once he was back in England, “I was sitting next to Andy Serkis [the human behind Gollum and King Kong] whose performance as Ian Dury in Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll had earned him plaudits. Andy and I joked that we were like the British Olympic team flying home with medals round our necks.”

The festival paid special attention to Djalili’s two movies. Just Like Us is a documentary about a group of stand-up “comedy ambassadors” who tour the Middle East to break down cultural barriers with humour. His other film, The Infidel, written by David Baddiel, is a ballsy life-swap comedy that centres on Djalili’s character, an anti-semitic Muslim Homer Simpson, who discovers he is actually adopted and born an orthodox Jew called Solly Shimshillewitz.

“New York audiences really seemed to get it,” Djalili said. “They saw how tough it is to make race and religion funny. De Niro told me he loved how we had portrayed a Muslim Everyman for the first time. He called me ‘the man of the festival’.”

As I concluded my interview with the “man of the festival” Djalili, who can be also seen in the forthcoming Sex and
the City 2, I asked him what he came away with from the Tribeca festival.

“It was wonderful to have our film appreciated, and treated like a massive event,” he told me. “It’s also great to see that New York has reclaimed its cultural heritage after 9/11.”