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. Read more about Oscar draws ire for snubbing Palestinian film
Benjamin J Doherty and Ali Abunimah10 December 2002
Above: Elia Suleiman in the director’s chair.
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. Read more about Oscars' double standard turns Palestinian film into refugee
“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.” Read more about "Jenin Jenin" features at International Documentary Filmfestival
The Chicago Palestine Film Festival is issuing a call for films by Palestinian cinematographers, directors and artists for the 2003 and subsequent festivals. The deadline for all film submissions is January 31, 2003. Read more about Chicago Palestine Film Festival: Call for Films
Peace Fire: Fragments from the Israel-Palestine Story, edited by Ethan Casey and Paul Hilder, joins public figures and analysts with vivid street-level diaries from the people in the conflict - Israeli soldiers, peace activists, settlers, Palestinian gunmen, NGO workers, and refugees. “As the individual narrators offer their accounts, an explosive story unfolds.” Read more about Peace Fire: "An explosive story unfolds"
During the Six Day War between Israel and the Arab States, the American intelligence ship USS Liberty was attacked for 75 minutes in international waters by Israeli aircraft and motor torpedo boats. Thirty-four men died and 172 were wounded. The most recent documentary, a 2001 production from the British Broadcasting Corporation is USS Liberty: Dead in the Water, is now on sale in North America. EI’s Nigel Parry offers more information. Read more about "USS Liberty: Dead in the Water" now available in VHS and DVD
This exhibition will bring together the work of eight artists from Palestine, Ireland and the United States. The exhibition will explore the impact and effects of military occupation, faltering attempts at settlement, and the importance of history and memory in both regions, drawing comparisons and parallels where necessary. At Gallery 400, 400 North Peoria Street, Chicago, November 19-30 Read more about Chicago: Palestine-Ireland Art Exhibit Opens
Many think of suicide bombers as insane, or motivated by pure religious fervor. The reality may not be quite so simple. Theatre group “De Queeste” tries to explain in its latest performance “Shock”. EI’s Arjan El Fassed visited this theatre play on November 16 in the Netherlands. Read more about Shock: the mind of a suicide bomber
A little more than a year ago, Brooklyn-reared Palestinian American Suheir Hammad was just an obscure writer and occasional college student putting in work on the New York poetry circuit and taking to the streets for a variety of political causes. Then terrorists attacked her city. The 28-year-old responded the only way she knew how: She jotted down a poem, “First Writing Since.” Amid the ocean of print inspired by That Day, perhaps no other collection of words has so succinctly articulated the strange confluence of being both Muslim and American in that moment in history. Natalie Hopkinson writes in the Washington Post.Read more about Out of the Ashes, Drops of Meaning: The Poetic Success of Suheir Hammad