John Rahal Sarrouf

Guided by the wisdom of Pizza Joe, a troubled young man tries to win the heart of a waitress trapped in an abusive relationship with her lecherous pizza shop manager. Add a sex-starved delivery boy, his brain-dead sidekick, a homicidal hotdog man and a missing pepperoni and you've got a recipe for disaster! A bawdy, tongue-in-cheek tale served with half-baked characters and an extra helping of crackpot pizza philosophy.

In impoverished Baghdad under Saddam's dictatorship, 16-year-old Amal hopes to regain her social status at school by volunteering to find a book as a class gift for the departing literature teacher. Meanwhile, her emotionally fragile little brother becomes obsessed with the notion that a visiting uncle from America--whom he confuses with Santa Claus--will bring him toys. Ashamed never to have been able to give his son a toy, the child's father sells some more prized family possessions and buys a model car for him.