Ramtin Arablui

history and how so many different groups of people and factions still managed to come together around a common cause.

It was a messy, uncertain time with no guarantees about the future.

all of your films all together, you could take them together and really call them like America, a life, you know, it's almost like America becomes a complete life.

And obviously it's not over.

We're living in a moment through a moment of that life.

But what I've noticed in it is that the origin.

So in this, in this series, you talk about the,

what I took away was really hopeful is that America was obviously built out of ideals, right?

Like I immigrated from Iran.

I have family members who immigrated to other parts of the West.

And what they always tell me, even to this day as we're adults, is you were really lucky your parents pushed to go to the US because at least not like where they live in those countries like Germany or France, the nationality is tied to ethnicity.

In this country, it's tied to ideas.

Now, the dark side of that is, in a moment like this where sometimes it feels, at least to me as just an observer, that maybe we don't share ideals anymore.

Can you have a country like the United States, if there isn't at the core of it, some set of shared ideals?

Because to me, it feels like that's what the country was birthed in.

It is deliciously complicated.

I think you're absolutely right.

I always come back to this because I grew up in the shadow of 9-11 and a lot of people around me that I grew up with have evolved this very cynical view towards American history.

And I know where that comes from.

And they're always surprised when I'm the father.