Calendar – Past Event

Ahmed Ahmed is an Egyptian-born, California-raised, writer, actor, comedian and consummate Hollywood insider who counts the original "Swinger" Vince Vaughn among his best friends. Ahmed's appearance in Vaughn's stand-up comedy documentary The Wild West Show, received rave reviews, with At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper among those recently anointing him "the funniest guy in this movie." Ahmed subsequently made his first appearance on The Tonight Show, after which Jay Leno invited him to sit on the couch-- a major milestone in any comic's career.

An Arab-American-Muslim immigrant, Ahmed Ahmed uses in-your-face humor as both an offense and a defense to brazenly tease out racial themes. He has a standing night at The World Famous Comedy Store on Hollywood's Sunset Strip and is the winner of the first ever Richard Pryor Ethnic Comedy award presented at the 2004 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. A poster child for comedy-based events in the Middle East, he has been profiled in major newspapers and magazines, including The Wall Street Journal and Newsweek. Never failing to stir up controversy, he has appeared on the television programs The View and 20/20, gaining a rabid international following along the way. Like most stand-ups, Ahmed has toured the college circuit, but he has also grown and diversified his fan base to include members of cultural centers and synagogues by embarking on a tour with a Rabbi comedian. Ahmed Ahmed is flaunting the stereotypes, putting them on the table to pick on, laugh at and hopefully gain some much needed perspective—and his audiences are eating it up.

Ahmed, Say Something Funny is not a performance piece, but rather a portrait-style documentary that tells an intimate, sometimes painful, always funny version of a hot button American immigrant story. Through filmed performances of Ahmed's tour across the United States and intimate family interviews, the film makes us laugh, cry and think by illuminating the seemingly insurmountable challenges of being an Arab American in a post 9/11 America.

With Ahmed's career momentum heating up, American audiences have already begun to discover his unique brand of humor, healing and hope.

Ahmed, Say Something Funny is the third in a series of portrait-style documentaries from documentarian Thelma Vickroy.