The winners of the "One Nation, Many Voices" Film Contest were announced on Tuesday, March 17.  The five winning films, each running five minutes or less and available online, are a mix of fictional and true stories and explore: job discrimination, religious conversion, Islam's take on the environment, finding allies in unlikely places and the impact of a small town Muslim high school teacher on his non-Muslim students.

The grand prize winning-film, "Arab in America," parodies the real-life experiences of filmmaker and Georgia native Nabil Abou-Harb, whose name has posed challenges for him when seeking jobs.

"When I thought of this idea in 2006 my intention was to put the audience in the shoes of this Muslim guy who just wants to find a decent job but his name keeps getting in the way," said Abou-Harb. "Now, with the millions of Americans out of work, it's a situation that many can relate to, but for different reasons. My hope was to tell a serious story in a funny way, so that people could laugh and maybe even say, 'man, that's happened to me before'."

Voters in the U.S. cast over 26,000 online ballots on the contest’s site (www.linktv.org/onenation) to choose the 29 finalists from among over 150 entries and then a panel of distinguished judges narrowed the pool down to five winners. The judges are Grammy-winning songwriter Kenneth Gamble, country singer Kareem Salama, comedian Preacher Moss, Muslim Girl Magazine editor-in-chief Ausma Khan, writer and former Jesuit seminarian Chris Lowney, and the grand prize winner of last year's film contest, Lena Khan.

Abou-Harb will receive a $25,000 cash prize and a broadcast debut on Link TV. The winner in each of the other four categories will receive $5,000 and a FLIP camera.

Posted  March 18, 2009