Top to bottom, Dalia Rooni stars as Nadia, Medalion Rahimi as Rana, and Layla Mohammadi as Set in Lauren Noll’s SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT.
SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT
COMEDY \\ RUNTIME: 105 minutes
Rana (Medalion Rahimi), a spiritual, feminist poet originally from Iran and recent college grad, is spending the summer in a beautiful house on Cape Cod, caretaker for a comatose tech billionaire. She’s also
enjoying a summer fling with her patient’s son, Adam (Logan Miller).
But when a letter from Immigration Services arrives denying her visa application, Rana must face leaving the United States. She commiserates with her closest friends: fellow Iranians Nadia (Dalia Rooni), a down-to-earth physical trainer in Los Angeles, and Setarah (Layla Mohammadi), an ambitious aspiring attorney in Chicago.
Adam, a good-natured and earnest but struggling app developer nurturing an authentic crush, pitches a solution: marry him, get a green card, and stay in the States.
Rana is torn. While homesick for her māmâni and longing for her zehn – the connection to the Persian culture that nurtured her – she also realizes that America holds opportunities she couldn’t get back home.
With guidance from her guru, Siddartha (Kevin Nealon), Rana accepts Adam’s offer, but it will be all about the paperwork. Once her green card is in hand, they will part as friends. Adam offers his own condition: A real wedding ceremony at the beach house to mask the charade.
The couple’s announcement delights Adam’s mother, Rebecca (Joey Lauren Adams) who warmly welcomes Rana’s friends, their boyfriends (Richie Moriarty, Michael Baszler), and invited guests to a picture-perfect Cape Cod wedding.
l-r, Logan Miller as Adam, Michael Baszler as Ryan, and Richie Moriarty as Pat in SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT.
Joey Lauren Adams as Rebecca
CREDITS
Directed by Lauren Noll
Written by Dalia Rooni
Produced by Zein Khleif, Lauren Noll, Medallion Rahimi, Dalia Rooni, Emily Reach White
Executive Producers Chris White, Emily Reach White
Rana – Medallion Rahimi
Set – Layla Mohammadi
Nadia – Dalia Rooni
Adam – Logan Miller
Pat – Richie Moriarty
Ryan – Michael Baszler
Rebecca – Joey Lauren Adams
Siddhartha – Kevin Nealon
Malena – Lauren Noll
Nolan – Nicholas Coombe
Simone – Danielle Pinnock
Cinematographer – Nathaniel Krause
Editor – Stephanie Williams
Casting Director – Jamie Ember
Original Score Composed, Arranged, and Produced By – Neuman Jody Mannas
CREDITS
Directed by Lauren Noll
Written by Dalia Rooni
Produced by Zein Khleif, Lauren Noll, Medallion Rahimi, Dalia Rooni, Emily Reach White
Executive Producers Chris White, Emily Reach White
Rana – Medallion Rahimi
Set – Layla Mohammadi
Nadia – Dalia Rooni
Adam – Logan Miller
Pat – Richie Moriarty
Ryan – Michael Baszler
Rebecca – Joey Lauren Adams
Siddhartha – Kevin Nealon
Malena – Lauren Noll
Nolan – Nicholas Coombe
Simone – Danielle Pinnock
Cinematographer – Nathaniel Krause
Editor – Stephanie Williams
Casting Director – Jamie Ember
Original Score Composed, Arranged, and Produced By – Neuman Jody Mannas
SALES & SCREENINGS
Contact Emily Reach White or Christine D’Souza to discuss distribution and special event screening opportunities for SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT.
MEET THE DIRECTOR
Lauren Noll is a Los Angeles-based actor-director from the mountains of East Tennessee. Her feature directorial debut, SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT, is a female-driven ensemble comedy highlighting three women navigating the tensions of their cross-cultural relationships and the pressures of modern life, friendship, and womanhood. It will premiere at SXSW 2026.
Hailing from a rich background in theatre, Lauren earned her graduate degree in Acting at Harvard’s American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) and the Moscow Art Theatre (MXAT) before her focus pivoted toward film. Lauren first stepped behind the camera with the short drama HONOR, an intimate, autobiographically inspired story about coming of age, coming out, and facing expulsion from Brigham Young University. The film earned multiple awards and launched her new path as a filmmaker. She followed with GEN V, which began an ongoing creative partnership with actor-writer Dalia Rooni and secured the pair a development deal with Adi Shankar’s Bootleg Universe. The duo went on to make CLEAN SLATE, a recipient of the
Collaborative Film Challenge Grand Jury Prize and a grant from Blackmagic Design, before embarking to make their first feature film SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT together.
Most recently, Lauren co-wrote and starred in the Oscar Qualified short film, THE HEART OF TEXAS, which screened at more than 75 festivals worldwide and earned Lauren a dozen acting awards on the festival circuit for her performance as Janie May, a down-on-her-luck country singer caught between a last shot at her dream and the crushing responsibility she bears for another dreamer she collides with on her path.
Across all of her work, Lauren is drawn to intimate, character-driven stories about ordinary people searching for grace and meaning in chaotic worlds. Her love for actors and their craft is undeniably infused into her directing style. She approaches each project with honesty, humor, and deep compassion, crafting stories that reveal the beauty and hilarity of being human.
l-r, Medallion Rahimi as Rana, Layla Mohammadi as Set, and Dalia Rooni as Nadia in SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT.
MEET THE SCREENWRITER
Dalia Rooni is an actor and writer with an extensive résumé across film, television, voiceover, and commercial work, having shared the screen with acclaimed talents like John Travolta and Rainn Wilson. Dalia’s complete lack of patience led her to writing her own material.
Her first feature film, SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT — a comedy exploring three interracial couples — will premiere at 2026’s SXSW Film Festival. Her script OPERATION WHITE BOY, a comedy thriller exploring religion across generations debuted at the Diversity in Cannes Film Festival, and her horror comedy GEN V won Best Writer, Best Concept, and Best Acting awards at the Collaborative Film Challenge, in addition to securing a development deal with Adi Shankar’s Bootleg Universe.
Along with being the proud voice of Ms. Marvel, Dalia’s on-screen acting credits include Scrubs, I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, Wonderman, and CODE 3.
In her own words, Dalia:
Is there a time in your life that you credit as the moment everything changed? For me, it was this. This weekend on Cape Cod. I was invited to a spontaneous wedding between my hippie-dippie foreign friend and a billionaire’s son. I thought it was just for papers. It turned out to be so, so, so much more.
That weekend, in a giant summer home, on the most perfect beach, I witnessed two perfect weirdos fall in love. I made lifelong friends. I found my husband while a friend in attendance finally admitted her relationship was expiring. I had earth-shattering realizations about who I was and who I wanted to become. We all did. Almost in grief, I experienced – for the very first time – what losing my innocence would feel like. What becoming a woman would be. And it hurt.
I spent my adolescent years living between a conservative town in Pennsylvania and the United Arab Emirates. My parents are immigrants from Iran and Bahrain. I’ve attended both Catholic school and Muslim class. I’ve been labeled as both prudish and unholy. American and foreign. Exotic, ethnically-ambiguous, a POC, not a POC, a terrorist, and even worse… white! Truthfully, I’m a 3rd Culture Kid. Confused. With a dichotomy of beliefs, interests, and music taste (country really does it for me y’all, I’m not gonna lie).
This story celebrates the grey area of “identity” without needing to define it. It celebrates the beautiful clusterfuck of emotions that is being from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.