The film, The Attack, is banned by gov't in Beirut; won three awards at the COLCOA French film festival in Hollywood.
By ARIEL BEN SOLOMON
Lebanon’s Interior Ministry banned a film by Lebanese director Ziad Doueiri because part of it was filmed in Israel, using Israeli actors, the director said.“I regret to inform you that the interior minister of Lebanon, minister [Marwan] Charbel, has decided to punish us and the film by banning it,” Doueiri wrote on his Facebook page on Saturday.“We were asked to return the permit [shown] to authorities, claiming that the reason for the rejection is that I, Ziad Doueiri, had spent time in Israel filming.”The statement said he had no regrets about using Israeli actors, stating, “I have no regret and no apologies whatsoever.”Doueiri revealed that some Palestinian films were filmed in Israel with Israeli actors and some even had Israeli financing, “yet they were allowed to screen in Beirut.”“Are Lebanese supposed to carry the Palestinian flag higher than the Palestinians themselves?” asked Doueiri, adding that the Ministry of Culture refused to submit the film to the Oscars.The film, The Attack, won three awards at the COLCOA French film festival in Hollywood.Charbel told the AFP that the film’s permit was revoked after the Interior Ministry received a letter of protest from the Israel Boycott Office of the Arab League based in Cairo.According to a review by The Hollywood Reporter website, the film is about an Israeli-Arab surgeon, Amin Jaafari, who is assimilated into life in Tel Aviv. After a suicide bombing, he finds out that his wife was the suicide bomber. Jaafari then heads to the Palestinian city of Nablus to find out why his wife ended up involved in the bombing.