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Palestinian filmmaker
Hany Abu-Assad was named the
year's best foreign language film at the Golden Globes.
The film "Paradise Now" portrayed a suicide bombers crossing into
Israel.
In his acceptance
speech, Abu-Assad made a plea for a Palestinian state, saying he saw
the Golden Globe as "a recognition that the Palestinians deserve
their liberty and equality unconditionally."
Winning the Globe also gives "Paradise Now" a major boost in its
fight for an Oscar on March 5. Its next hurdle is to become one of
the five foreign films nominated for an Academy Award on January 31.
No Palestinian film has ever been nominated.
"I am surprised that we won but I don't believe my film is
controversial. It just shows something from a different side that we
are all worried about," he told reporters backstage at the Globes.
Abu-Assad insisted that he had not taken sides in the film but had
tried to explain why two seemingly simple garage mechanics would be
willing to kill themselves and others. His film presents arguments
on all sides of the issue.
"It is a work of cinema. Cinema shows you different points of view,"
he added.
To make the movie, Abu-Assad had to dodge a missile attack from
Israel plus skirt landmines and threats from Palestinian extremists.
But the filming in the West Bank city of Nablus, where his location
manager was briefly kidnapped as a warning by Palestinian factions
afraid the film would be critical, was just one hurdle.
"Paradise Now" wants the viewer to understand the mind-set that
produces such acts as suicide bombings - because, as Abu-Assad says,
to understand is a first step forward.
One scene in his movie is set in a West Bank video store that might
pass for one in the United States or Europe except that it sells
tapes made by suicide bombers who explain their actions to inspire
those that follow. The tapes seem to take on the role that baseball
trading cards might have in the United States.
Abu-Assad says he believes that impotence fuels the bombings.
The filmmaker says, "The feeling of the impotence is so strong that
they kill themselves and others to say, 'I am not impotent.' It is a
very complex situation, but the overriding umbrella is the injustice
situation."
He says his film doesn't impose a point of view but instead tries to
show "something invisible and that has never been done before."
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