Art, Music & Culture

The award-winning Palestinian film Divine Intervention, directed by Elia Suleiman, will feature during the Hubert Bals Fund Harvest at the showcase for contemporary world cinema, the Rotterdam International Film Festival in the Netherlands. Moreover, ‘Divine Intervention’ is nominated for the Amnesty International -DOEN Award, a prize for films about human rights.

As part of the show entitled “War (What is it Good For?)”, the Artist Emergency Response collective will present the first version of its ongoing Video Petition Project. An hour and a half long, this video documents the first 200 petitioners who gave face and voice to the growing number of North Americans who oppose the Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. An AER press release offers more information

Avatar Films’ latest release, the critically acclaimed Divine Intervention, opens on Friday January 17, 2003, at the Angelika Film Center in Manhattan. The film is the first Palestinian work to receive a full American release. In this article, Keith Icove, VP of Business Affairs at Avatar Films, offers information about the initial screening and subsequent showings in NY, NJ, DC, and CA.

When Elia Suleiman brought his film Divine Intervention to Ramallah he found the Israeli soldiers had got there first. The entrance to the cinema had been bombed, the cash till rifled, the Dolby stereo stolen. It was never going to be easy for a Palestinian to film in the West Bank. Elia Suleiman tells The Guardian’s Xan Brooks how he became a hit-and-run director .

“I was searching for the humane side of people’s dreams, people’s hunger and people’s disappointments. I was not looking for numbers, who is right, or why this happened,” Bakri said. “For me, it’s a prayer to stop this hell we are living in.” Joshua Mitnick of the New Jersey Star Ledger reports on a censorship move that calls Israeli democracy into question.

“In 1982, lacking e-mail, a cell phone, activist list serves, or websites, the best outlet for my horror, sorrow and anger at the Sabra and Shatila massacres was to crank up The Clash’s music to full volume as I cleaned the house in fury. ” The EI’s Laurie King-Irani pays homage to the late Joe Strummer of “The Clash.”

James Longley, director of the acclaimed 2001 documentary “Gaza Strip” will return the prestigious Student Academy Award he received from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) unless the Academy explains why it has deemed Palestine ineligible to enter the Oscars competition. Read the story and the full interview with EI.

Although Divine Intervention has been draped with awards at film festivals, including the Jury Prize at Cannes last May, it is not eligible for consideration in the Oscar’s best-foreign-film category because Palestine is not a country. Michael Posner reports for the Globe and Mail.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences operates a double standard that may have kept Elia Suleiman’s award-winning feature film “Divine Intervention” out of the competition for the Oscars, EI has learned. The film, a dark comedy about a love affair between two people on opposite sides of an Israeli military checkpoint, won a prestigious jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival, and the European Film Award. EI’s Ali Abunimah and Benjamin Doherty investigate.

“Jenin Jenin”, a 54-minute documentary made by Palestinian filmmaker/actor Muhammad Bakri, features at the International Documentary Filmfestival (IDFA) in Amsterdam. This film is Bakri’s most cutting statement yet. Bakri says that the film is about “human suffering as such - about a wounded soul, a demolished home, a felled tree, a picked flower, a broken heart.”