This independently produced movie centers on the friendship between an Orthodox Jewish woman, Rochel (Zoe Lister-Jones) and a devout Muslim woman, Nasira (Francis Benhamou). Both meet as first-year teachers at a public school in Brooklyn, a multiethnic community where stereotype and prejudice are a challenge. In the children’s eyes they should be bitter enemies. In the principal’s eyes, played by Marcia Jean Kurtz, a secular Jew, they are two bright and attractive women bound by an outmoded and repressive ultraconservative and patriarchal system of arranged marriages. Both are of marriageable age. They become close friends as they struggle to conform or rebel to an arranged marriage.

ARRANGED is a film showing the tension between modern culture and religious tradition. Which will prevail—one’s beliefs and respect of family, or a marriage based on love rather than image and security? Or can they support both? See and enjoy!