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Right there in front of us

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In the new indie film “Goodbye Solo,” a Senegalese cab driver in love with a Hispanic woman befriends a suicidal, middle-aged white man. The characters all interact in an urban, working-class atmosphere in which their racial, sexual and ethnic diversity is not only accepted, it isn’t even a plot point. Yet the picture, which opens Friday and was directed by Iranian American Ramin Bahrani, does not take place in New York, Los Angeles. The setting is Winston-Salem, N.C., a tobacco town with a population of 225,000.

Needless to say, this is not the Dixie of “Gone With the Wind” or even “Fried Green Tomatoes.” But more and more it reflects the look of all corners of America in 2009, an image that has begun popping up in movies -- mostly of the independent variety.

“This is America, that’s it,” says Bahrani. “I think even small towns like Winston-Salem have changed. And in Winston-Salem, the majority of the cab drivers are African American or Senegalese, but if you go to Greensboro [25 miles away], they’re Sudanese.”

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Bahrani’s is just one of the recent movies in which multicultural and multiracial interaction are presented as the American norm. Last year’s “The Visitor” features a depressed university professor (Oscar-nominated Richard Jenkins) who finds that his New York apartment is being illegally occupied by an African woman and a Syrian man, but rather than kicking them out, he allows them to stay and eventually becomes part of their lives. “Rachel Getting Married” is centered around a multiracial wedding with multiethnic guests and world music entertainment where no one comments about, or even notices, their differences.

“Amreeka,” which recently played at Sundance to critical acclaim and will be released this year, features a Palestinian woman who moves to small-town Illinois -- and even though her teenager is taunted by racists, her niece’s romance with an African American seems quite natural. The woman herself is not only accepted by her colleagues at the local White Castle but also attracts the eye of the high school principal -- a Jewish man.

Even the Harold and Kumar films, essentially low-budget stoner comedies, are invested in this casual racial and cultural gumbo: The leads are two Asian Americans whose girlfriends are Hispanic and Caucasian, and buddies are Jewish.

“The world we grew up in, there were Asian guys, Indian guys, black guys and they were all very much like ourselves,” Jon Hurwitz, who co-wrote both Harold and Kumar movies (with Hayden Schlossberg), told Newsday. “But . . . we never saw our world portrayed on the screen.”

“Amreeka” director Cherien Dabis says audiences are primed for films to catch up with the culture. “People are ready for movies that are more inclusive and reflect who we are as Americans,” says Dabis, a Palestinian American who grew up in Nebraska and Ohio. “These movies are reflecting more of that reality,” she says, “and with the election of Barack Obama, America proved we are there.”

Everywhere, it seems, but in big-budget Hollywood movies. Although studio pictures have certainly made breakthroughs in terms of minority images -- particularly those of African Americans -- the kind of multiculturalism seen in indies is missing in many of the films that hit multiplexes. Several studios contacted for this story had no comment, but, says a former executive at a major studio’s boutique division, “I don’t think mainstream films will truly reflect an unself-conscious multiculturalism until the lives and associations of the creators of the big movies reflect this.”

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Adds Tom McCarthy, who wrote and directed “The Visitor”: “I feel indie filmmakers are a little bit younger because they’re starting out, and they’re representing the world as they see it. The wonderful thing about making indie movies is you can fulfill your vision. When you’re making a studio movie, there are a lot more cooks in the kitchen and they are always keeping an eye on how they will market it. That starts to possibly dilute the director and writer’s vision.”

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A matter of scale

Simply put, it’s a question of creative orientation and economies of scale. Marian Koltai, a film industry marketing consultant, notes, for example, that “The Visitor” has grossed nearly $10 million, a very nice take for an independent film with no star power, “but that doesn’t throw off enough money to warrant a big studio to want to do it. The machinery of these big companies dictate a lot, so the risk is greater.”

Same as it ever was, really. Studios are in the global marketing game and the one color that is most important is green. “You have to look at studio financial interests as a global issue,” Koltai says. “I don’t think race or nationality really matters; what matters is if it’s box-office worthy.”

Which means, according to Bahrani, “In those films that have a 2,000-print release, do you see films with a diversity of ideas? The people making those decisions are afraid. They are afraid if they put something that’s actually happening on the streets onscreen, that it wouldn’t be accepted. But that’s not the case.”

Which, of course, leaves the whole field of depicting Obama’s America -- as some might refer to it -- to filmmakers with small budgets and big visions. “Independent films are where you always saw the most complete portrayals of minorities, immigrant or ethnic Americans, gays and lesbians,” says the former executive. “It is why independent films came to be -- to tell different stories from different points of view, often outsider or alternative stories that were not being told in the mainstream.”

Still, there is hope for the future of storytelling. “Slumdog Millionaire,” for example, won the best picture Oscar and has pulled in nearly $140 million domestically. This British-made movie set in India has become a sort of introductory-level cultural course -- Bollywood Meets Hollywood 101 -- for millions of filmgoers. There is always the hope a movie like this will spin off in interesting ways and encourage other filmmakers to take chances with bigger budgets. “It is evolutionary,” says Koltai, who believes “you have a lot more diversity in film now than 10 years ago.”

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Even some of the indie filmmakers are optimistic. “You never know why a studio will take on certain subject matter or certain films,” Dabis says. “It might be small steps, but in the studio’s own formula they will find a way to translate the success of these films.”

In the meantime, the little guys will be leading the way, making the quirky films about diverse characters that have helped expand the medium’s storytelling horizons. “A lot of it does come down to personal experience, holding a mirror up to society,” McCarthy says. “I think independent filmmakers are ahead of the curve in terms of a lot of the studio pictures. Still, there will be people who say, ‘That’s a crazy story, with crazy characters.’

“Others will say, ‘That’s my building.’ ”

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calendar@latimes.com

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