Ali Ammar: Ivan Grbovic

Astonishing Performance Dept: That's mostly because this Montrealer of Serbian origin has made one remarkably accomplished film. But it doesn't hurt that it features an astonishing performance by Ali Ammar as a 20-year-old man with a serious physical disability who is desperately unhappy - and not just because he has extreme difficulty walking. The performance is all the more notable when you realize Ammar had never acted before, not even in a school play, according to Montreal Gazette. "I didn't take it seriously," Ammar said in an interview this week. "But I said, 'Why not try?' " Writer-director Ivan Grbovic's first feature, Rom o Onze, has quietly become one of the most acclaimed Qu b cois films of the past 12 months, picking up accolades at film fests around the globe. Ammar was studying psychology at Ahuntsic College when someone from the CEGEP who works with disabled students told him he'd heard a filmmaker was looking for an actor of Arab origin with a disability. So Ammar decided to audition even though he had absolutely no experience. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.