This, Then That: Osamah Sami and Andrew Knight

The book-to-film adaptation is a well-worn, but fraught, path. It’s a path lined with all sorts of possible bogeymen: sensitive authors, vociferous fans, opinionated scholars  and maybe even meddling producers, pushing for sunnier (and/or cheaper) endings. There will always be authors who feel their work was done an injustice and readers who feel the book was not served by the film.

Andrew Knight and Osamah Sami have chosen to tackle this problem in an unusual way. The book, Good Muslim Boy (written by Osamah) and its film incarnation, Ali’s Wedding (written by Andrew), were developed separately but simultaneously. Both projects tell the story of Osamah’s journey from Iran to the suburbs of Australia and his efforts to meet the expectations of family, faith and new friends. The pair will discuss their experiences working on Good Muslim Boy, their thoughts on adaptations in general and whether this structure of simultaneous adaptation could work on other projects.