Dinner at the No Gos*

In the global media, extremes of religious, political, economic and cultural life command attention and skew perceptions of risk and reality. In the US especially, where local, regional and national news are emphasized to the near exclusion of international coverage (unless, disaster, spectacle or celebrity is concerned), the average citizen/consumer is ignorant or mal-informed about other peoples, places and systems of governance, economics and belief, unable to see through sensational representation to often commonplace reality. Our goal is to inform, educate and engage audiences in order to diminish the distortions of ignorance and fear on international understanding exchange. Dinner in the No-Go’s put a human face and a personal perspective on places we’ve been advised not to travel. And what better symbol of civilized exchange and intimate, informal conversation than the dinner table, a universal metaphor of coming together to share that most fundamental of cultural expressions: food. This documentary project builds on shared experience, before venturing into issues of contention. It presumes that political exchange, compromise and reconciliation can be wrested from bitterness and enmity, especially when such hostility derives from things we don’t know about others we don’t trust. Dinner in the No-Go’s seeks to promote mutual understanding and peace, putting humor, irony and just a little dash of absurdity into every bite.