Bayview Entertainment To Release Writer/Director Alfred Robbins' Mistaken On DVD On June 2

Bayview Entertainment has circled the first street-date Tuesday in June (June 2) as the DVD release date for writer/director Alfred Robbins’ Mistaken (aka: Raltat).

Based on the mistaken identity experiences of Sophie Atta, identified as Laila Bassir (played by Nadia Kounda) in the Robbins film, we are introduced to her (thought a series of flashbacks) first in Morocco (younger version played by Mustarha Chikar), growing up.   Later Laila (Sophie) comes to the United States to study to be a nurse and meets Gary (Jonathan Regier), they marry, but eventually things go south.   

Now a citizen and working as a nurse, she meets an Egyptian-born doctor, who has also become a United States citizen.   His name is Mohammed Atta (Firas Natour) … no, not the Mohammed Atta who flew American Airlines Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, but Dr. Mohammed Atta, who lived at the time near Baltimore and had a practice, as a kidney specialist, at Johns Hopkins University Hospital (in the film he is an engineer).

With the introductions out of the way and Laila’s character firmly established as anything but an international terrorist, she enters the very depths of hell in the days following the 9/11 attacks.   On a routine commuter flight from New York to Baltimore she is snatched up by the F.B.I. and interrogated for hours, despite the fact that she is six-months pregnant.

It matters not as Special Agent Valerie Cooper (Chantal Nchako) and her associates rip into her with threats and accusations to the point of abuse.   

Filmmaker Alfred Robbins delivers a cautionary tale, not just of mistaken identity, but about making assumptions about people based on their religion or how they “look” … these biases can influence the judgment of people who are normally cold-stone sober as they search for the truth.

The great irony is that as Atta was boarding Flight 11 in Boston, Dr. Atta was seeing his first patient of the morning at Johns Hopkins.   One Atta, a mass murderer, the other Atta … a doctor out to save lives.