The short film The Parrot, featuring stars Hend Sabry and Ashraf Barhoum and directed by Amjad Al Rasheed and Darin J. Sallam, won the Jury Award for Best Short Film at the Twin Cities Arab Film Festival, which closed on Sunday, October 1, 2017.

Established in 2003, the Arab Film Festival has featured debuts of independent narrative and documentary features and short films from more than fifteen countries. The festival seeks to provide Arab American and Arab filmmakers support and exposure to build the local Arab American community. The festival is internationally recognized as a platform for contemporary Arab films and its place in the American experience.

The Parrot tells the story of a Mizrahi Jewish family, who emigrate from Morocco, trying to settle into their new life in Haifa, Palestine in 1948. Directed by Darin J. Sallam and Amjad Al-Rasheed (Jordan), the film stars Hend Sabry, Ashraf Barhoum, Yasmine Ben Amara, Eyad Hourani, Firas Taybeh, Lara Sawalha, and Ahmad Al-Madani, and written by Darin J. Sallam, Amjad Al-Rasheed and Rifqi Assaf.

The Parrot had its world premiere at the 13th Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) within the Muhr Short competition. The film is funded by the German Foundation Robert Bosch Stiftung (RBS), which funds the Best German-Arab film projects. The Parrot received the 2015 Film Prize of RBS in the short fiction category and is a German/Jordanian co-production between the German company Monokel (Roman Roitman) and the Jordanian company TaleBox (Deema Azar). The film is distributed in the Arab world by MAD Solutions.

The Parrot is the 4th short film starring Sabry; she previously collaborated with young directors in their shorts, namely; Sherif El Bendary's Rise and Shine, which screened in 75 festivals across more than 33 countries, the award-winning short Day and Night by Islam Azzazi, which took part in many festivals and won several awards, and the Tunisian film One Evening in July by Rajaa Amari.

Darin J. Sallam is a Jordanian filmmaker who holds a BA in graphic design and received her MFA degree from the Red Sea Institute for Cinematic Arts (RSICA) in 2012. Sallam made five award-winning shorts including Still Alive and The Dark Outside that were screened at many eminent international film festivals. Her latest short fiction film The Parrot (2016), a joint writing/directing project, received the 2015 Film Prize of the Robert Bosch Stiftung. She is currently working on her debut feature narrative film project entitled Farha, which won the ART Award at the 2016 Dubai Film Connection (DFC), Emirati Ministry of Interior Award for Best Societal Screenplay at the 2016 Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF)and the Halo Post-Production Award at the 2017 Pitching Forum in Espinho, Portugal. Sallam is also co-founder and managing partner at TaleBox, a Jordanian production company based in Amman.

Amjad Al-Rasheed is an award-winning Jordanian director and producer. He received his MFA degree from the Red Sea Institute for Cinematic Arts (RSICA). After receiving the Best Scenarist Award for Short Fiction at the First Film Production competition in Amman in 2005, Amjad started his career as a director, producer and production designer of music videos and some short and feature films. In 2007, Amjad was selected to attend the Berlinale Talents at the 57th Berlin International Film Festival. His directing credits include five short films that screened at international film festivals. In 2013, he directed the TV show The Rania Show (2013), which is considered as one of the most popular comedy shows in Jordan. Amjad is currently working on his debut feature Inshallah A Boy - A Chapter from The Fabled Life of Nawal. In December 2016, he was listed on ScreenDaily's 'Arab Stars of Tomorrow' among five emerging film talents from the Arab world.