Beyond Honor, the debut feature from Writer/Director Varun Khanna, is a strikingly bold portrait of oppression and high tension in suburban America. It is the story of Sahira Abdel-Karim (Ruth... Beyond Honor, the debut feature from Writer/Director Varun Khanna, is a strikingly bold portrait of oppression and high tension in suburban America. It is the story of Sahira Abdel-Karim (Ruth Osuna), a young Egyptian-American woman raised in southern California. She is torn between two distinct worlds: one that is haunted by a harshly violent memory and tightly bound by tradition, the other that we hardly realize exists because we are so much a part of it - contemporary America with its promise of personal freedom for all. Beyond Honor is a heart-stopping, emotionally resonant portrayal of gender roles and the dynamics of power within a small, claustrophobic family. Granted the gift of education by her father, Sahira is a medical student -beautiful, bold, and confident. She dreams of a different, more modern life shared with her friends and colleagues, including her unceasingly supportive boyfriend Brian (Jason David Smith). For this life to be any more opposed to that which she experiences at home is impossible. Dominated by her father Mohammed (Wadie Andrawis) and ruled by traditionally patriarchal Muslim values, the Abdel-Karim family lives in fear. Sahira's mother, Noor (Laurel Melagrano), is an American woman who submits body and soul to her husband. Her brother, Samir (Ryan Izay), is the favored son whose own cultural conflict is expressed as fiercely guarded, repressed sexual desire. The family is bullied into following Mohammed's every whim. Unspoken tensions escalate daily, and Sahira's only escape from this pressure cooker is the world of school and friends. But even this haven is marked by her father's intimidating presence. Things quickly change when Sahira becomes bolder and more daring, joining her friends for a night of personal freedom that introduces her to previously unknown experiences of sex and romance. Her father's smoldering distrust of his daughter's diverging lifestyle finally catches up with her, and she is punished for “dishonoring the family” in the most unthinkable manner. The horrific actions taken by the Abdel-Karim family are as inevitable as they are inconceivable to the outside world, which, like the viewer, is caught completely unaware by the explosive violence that could erupt when such mounting oppression goes unchecked, and from which none can truly recover. The entire family becomes complicit, their guilt inarguable. The very concept of "honor" becomes a battlefield, and sex now becomes an issue of power as Sahira fights to bring justice to those who have harmed her. The faults of the family, long hidden, become Sahira's ultimate weapons of revenge and dishonor, leading to the film's chilling conclusion.
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