Doha Tribeca Film Festival Awards 2009
Team Qatar by Liz Mermin (top); Hiam Abbass in Najwa Najjar’s Pomegranates and Myrrh (bottom)
Doha Tribeca Film Festival Executive Director Amanda Palmer and Robert De Niro handed out two audience awards, worth US$50,000 each, at the festival’s closing night gala on Nov. 1. Coincidentally, both winning films were directed by women.
British filmmaker Liz Mermin’s documentary Team Qatar, which chronicles the creation of that country’s first debate team, was awarded Best Festival Film, while Palestinian Najwa Najjar’s debut feature, Pomegranates and Myrrh (talk about a poetic title), was chosen the Best Arab Film.
Starring Hiam Abbass (who deserves a best actress Oscar nod for Lemon Tree), Pomegranates and Myrrh revolves around a Palestinian woman torn between being faithful to her [...]
by Andre Soares | November 2, 2009
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Tags: Ali Suliman, Doha Tribeca Film Festival, Film Awards, Film Festivals, Hiam Abbass, Liz Mermin, Najwa Najjar, Pomegranates and Myrrh, Robert De Niro, Scandar Copti, Sophia Al Maria, Team Qatar
LEMON TREE: Q&A with Eran Riklis
Based on actual events, Eran Riklis‘ Lemon Tree (no connection to Sandy Tolan’s novel The Lemon Tree), which opens today in the Los Angeles area, chronicles a Palestinian widow’s fight to prevent the Israeli army from razing her lemon grove. The problem is that all those lemon trees are located right next door to the brand new house — actually, "fortress" would be a better description — of the Israeli minister of defense. Security agents have deemed the grove a potential hide-out for terrorists, who could then fire rockets right onto the minister’s dining table.
Sounds like a political film? Well, sure. Lemon Tree is definitely political. (The real-life case was that of defense minister Shaul Mofaz and his [...]
by Andre Soares | May 1, 2009
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Tags: Ali Suliman, Doron Tavory, Eran Riklis, Hiam Abbass, Interviews, Israeli Cinema, Lemon Tree, Los Angeles Screenings, Middle East Conflict, Political Movies, Politics, Pscyhological Drama, Rona Lipaz-Michael, Socially Conscious Movies, Suha Arraf
LEMON TREE: Q&A with Eran Riklis Part II
LEMON TREE: Q&A with Eran Riklis Part I
Along those lines, the men in charge in Lemon Tree don’t come across in a very positive light. A bossy male security agent demands the destruction of the lemon grove. A bossy Palestinian man threatens Salma because of her relationship with her lawyer. The defense minister is obsessed with his career and may be having an affair with an assistant. The Palestinian lawyer himself seems to be as interested in advancing his career as in helping Salma, even though he actually cares for her.
The two women, however, are both admirable characters. Was that a conscious decision, to make the women “stronger” — in their [...]
by Andre Soares | May 1, 2009
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Tags: Ali Suliman, Doron Tavory, Eran Riklis, Hiam Abbass, Interviews, Israeli Cinema, Lemon Tree, Los Angeles Screenings, Middle East Conflict, Political Movies, Politics, Pscyhological Drama, Rona Lipaz-Michael, Socially Conscious Movies, Suha Arraf
Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival 2009
The 4th Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival, which runs April 23-30, will kick off with a screening of Joshua Sinclair’s Jump, starring Ben Silverstone (of the coming-of-age gay drama Get Real) and Patrick Swayze.
Jump will screen on Thursday, April 23, at 8:00 pm at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills. Based on a real story, the film (co-written by Sinclair and Ryan James) follows the biased murder trial of the young Jew and future celebrity portrait photographer Philippe Halsman (Silverstone), who was accused of murdering his father in late 1920s Austria. Swayze plays the young man’s Jewish attorney.
Also in the Jump cast: Martine McCutcheon, and veterans Stefanie Powers, Richard Johnson, and Sybil [...]
by Andre Soares | April 17, 2009
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Tags: Ali Suliman, Angie Dickinson, Beau Jest, Ben Silverstone, Cass Warner, Cathy Randall, Debbie Reynolds, Doron Tavory, Eran Riklis, Film Festivals, Harry Warner, Hey Hey It's Esther Blueburger, Hiam Abbass, Israeli Cinema, Jim Sherman, Joshua Sinclair, Jump, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Lainie Kazan, Lemon Tree, Los Angeles Screenings, Martine McCutcheon, Patrick Swayze, Philippe Halsman, Richard Johnson, Ryan James, Stefanie Powers, Sybil Danning, Tab Hunter, The Brothers Warner, Toni Collette
