The film is the product of a Fulbright obtained by retired Metro State Professor Ali Thobani in which five Metro State faculty and five teachers from Thornton and Overland High Schools respectively were able to travel and study in Egypt. Psychology Professor MaryAnn Watson, along with Overland High School English teachers Cyncie Winter and Kara Rogers, used the trip to produce the 30-minute documentary, comparing Muslim and non-Muslim teens in Egypt and Colorado.

The film, which is the latest in a series of comparative culture "videocases" produced by Watson, showcases interviews with six non-Muslim U.S. students, six Muslim students in the United States and seven Egyptian students from the Heliopolis International School in Cairo.

Students were asked about misperceptions across cultures and to describe the realities of their lives and schooling.

"One of the things that stood out," Watson says, "was that the six American Muslims were more stringent in their adherence to (Muslim observance). The Egyptians were more at ease with Western ways and not wearing hijab (the headscarf)."

The young Americans featured in the film wanted their Egyptian counterparts to understand that American life is not as superficial as it appears in Hollywood films, while Egyptian students wanted Americans to see them as modern and not oppressed.

One American Muslim, whose family comes from the Middle East, encapsulated the differences in student cultures this way: "We are under a lot of pressure here in the U.S. to go off track. Whereas there, there is a lot of positive peer pressure (to succeed)."

The film, which has been produced in tandem with an instructor's manual, is being distributed to middle and high school teachers in Cherry Creek as part of a Cherry Creek School District, Title V grant. Another film and instructor's manual on the Egyptian Family is also in the works.

Watson, whose other films include "Wearing Hijab," "Voices for Peace: Videocases of Jews and Arabs in Israel" and "Africans in America," says the series' purpose is to promote "understanding of the differences between groups and to understand other cultures more clearly."