Review: David & Layla

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David Moscow (“Big”) and Shiva Rose star in “David & Layla,” an unlikely Manhattan-set cross-cultural romantic comedy from Iraqi Kurd filmmaker Jay Jonroy that mixes sex, food, drugs, Jewish mothers and the almost unheard-of plot turn of a Jewish man converting to another religion, along with the aftermath of the 1988 attacks on the Iraqi village Halabja, which was gassed during the Iran-Iraq war. David does man-on-the-street interviews about sex for his Brooklyn cable access show; Layla’s the beautiful Muslim woman he meets one day who may need a green card pretty quickly. Smart, winning, charming cross-cultural comedy. 106m. (Ray Pride)

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OCTOBER 2023 ISSUE: CHICAGO ARCHITECTURE BIENNIAL

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