At Frameline32, novelist-turned-screenwriter Shamim Sarif presented The World Unseen starring Lisa Ray and Sheetal Sheth as women whose love liberates them even as it flies in the face of conservative society in apartheid-era South Africa. Now Sarif and her beautiful stars are back with the more contemporary story of a couple negotiating the challenges of family and societal expectations and their own preconceptions as they struggle toward happiness. When Tala (Ray) and Leyla (Sheth) meet, the attraction is immediate, cloaked at first in a fast friendship that soon gives way to their growing passion.

Forthright Tala, a well-to-do Palestinian Christian raised in Jordan, is the self-confident one. Shy, aspiring writer Leyla, a Muslim living in London with her Indian immigrant parents, is much less sure of herself. Tala is on her fourth engagement, and determined to accede to her powerful family’s wishes, even if it means she can never be with the woman she loves. While tackling big picture issues of religion, racism, and ethnic differences, I Can’t Think Straight also delves into the more intimate matter of family. In particular, the drama limns the relationship between mothers and daughters as Tala and Leyla must choose which is more important: family approval, or the love that burns within their hearts for one another.

In a parody of the Hollywood _Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Mr. & Mrs. Singh _features an Indian American couple in a marriage of convenience, neither of whom admit secret identities!