Stop the vehicle immediately.
Ah!
Okay!
Sorry!
Now, this guy's face is probably not far off
what your face would look like when you find out
why he's been billed as one of Australia's
most extraordinary liars.
You've just told the biggest lie in the world.
Well, his secret's out.
And you're about to see it on the big screen.
I had to fake it, 'til I make it!
It's called Ali's Wedding, starring Osamah as Ali.
At the start, the lie was fine
and I was catching the tram.
Getting to Melbourne Uni, it was all good.
Made some friends.
And I felt like I kind of belonged.
I'm sitting in lectures and suddenly
you believe your own lie.
Coming to Australia as a refugee from Iraq
Osamah, the son of a Muslim cleric
was raised with the indisputable expectation
he'd become a doctor.
You got the top mark?
Guaranteed.
University of Melbourne, here we come!
96.2!
There's no man alive smarter than his father.
I got 96 also.
Point 4.
Liar, liar, liar.
And the lies just keep coming while Osamah
fakes his enrolment at medical school
attending classes for almost a year
and he had everybody fooled.
When these things happen, you don't think about them.
One thing leads to another, and...
There was such immense community pressure
and my father, who -
Well he was an Imam,
a very important man in the community.
Very important man in the community,
and my hero as well.
I felt if I failed, then people would see dad as failing.
It just crushes you, and you feel you can't breathe
and everybody builds you up to be something that inside
you know you're not
and that's not the path you really want to follow.
I guess a lot of people would wonder
why couldn't you just tell your parents
and the community the truth?
At the time, I felt it was impossible.
If I had said, 'Hey, I got 68.5.'
They'd go, 'Oh you're a dickhead.'
With everything that dad and mum had gone through
the war, and migrating to here.
When parents work so hard to bring you here
all you have to do is
open your book a couple of hours a day and study.
That is the expectation
that we've got too many taxi drivers mate.
That's the thing with us, you know as Arabs.
You're either a doctor or lawyer
or a taxi driver.
Yeah look, I'm a journalist and you're an actor
we're failures!
That's right! In our parents' eyes, what are we doing?
And it wasn't just the perfect career
Osamah's parents expected.
They also forced upon him their handpicked perfect wife.
You know our daughter Yomna?
Hello.
G'day.
The boy is so eager to marry.
It is done!
You were pushed into an arranged marriage.
Ah yes.
Is arranged marriage still a thing right now
in the Muslim community in Australia?
Yeah, it is. It is.
Really?
Yeah it is, but like you think of arranged marriages
and straightaway it's loaded, it's negative
but it's not always.
My parents were arranged
and they were married for 30 blissful years.
They were madly in love and together.
It works for some people, it doesn't work for others.
But it's about us having the courage to speak up.
And at the time that it was happening to me
I obviously lacked that courage.
Until the wedding night, when I went:
Oh no, I don't want to do this man!
And I just bolted.
Osamah's marriage only lasted exactly
one hour and forty minutes.
I went into hiding, that's not in the film.
Where did you go?
So, you know how on the wedding you get
packets with money in them?
Yeah.
And uh, I was like-
You took the money and ran?!
Well, it was in my tuxedo, and I thought...
What's the protocol here?
He runs away, because he wants to be with Dianne.
You never told me you were doing medicine.
Didn't know I needed your permission.
His father's left devastated
and there's no way they'd accept her because
she's not Muslim, and she's not Iraqi.
So do you need a hand carrying these
to your father's shop?
It's two bottles.
Osamah's father never got to see the film.
He passed away before it was made.
Do you think he forgave you?
For the lies?
Do you feel that he forgave you?
I know he did.
And I wish that I
could you know, tell him face to face
what he meant.
You know, sometimes we don't tell
those who we love
that we love them.
Until...
yeah.
But you know, he knows, he feels it.
You've said a couple of times that you hope
the film goes some way to dispelling some of the myths
or stereotypes about Muslim communities
particularly in Australia.
What are working to try and change?
We're spoken of, not heard from.
There's always an opinion about us
but it's not from us.
We belong here, and we are part of the Australian narrative.
How can we assimilate, as we're always told
if we don't see ourselves reflected?
So what better way to do that than
make a Muslim rom-com?
People laugh, people feel good about themselves.
I think Ali's Wedding makes you feel good.
Osamah, it's an absolute pleasure to talk to you.
Thank you so much.