january 2005

Making a film is not easy at the best of times. Imagine then what it is like during a military occupation. That's what Palestinian director Hany Abu-Asad faced making his new feature "Paradise Now," the first film shot entirely on location in the West Bank during the current intifada.

Taking guerrilla film-making to a whole new level, Abu-Asad and his crew faced constant peril from Israeli soldiers, Palestinian militants as well as the daily tribulations of trying to live under siege.

"We were so close to death on so many occasions. There was a real threat that we could die," the director told The Daily Star during a recent interview. "But we made it possible because we were all almost ready to sacrifice our own lives to make this film."

Currently in the final stages of post-production in Holland, home to the film's production company Augustus Film, the movie follows a day in the life of two Palestinian childhood friends, one of whom decides to become a suicide bomber. Controversial subject matter.

"I wanted to make a political thriller and I thought that this phenomenon of killing oneself with one's enemy was a strong subject for a thriller," Abu-Asad said on the inspiration behind the screenplay, which he co-wrote with Bero Beyer.

"If you know when you're going to die then there is suspense all the time. Of course we realize it is a sensitive topic. But the script isn't just political. It is also about friendship, the banality of life, love and sacrifice."

While the project would have raised eyebrows in less capable hands, Abu-Asad has already proved himself to be at the forefront of the new generation of Palestinian filmmakers. The last few years have seen a plethora of documentaries, of admittedly variable quality, on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but Abu-Asad has been one of the few directors to continue making feature films.

"Rana's Wedding," made in 2002, following the efforts of a Palestinian girl trying to get married against the backdrop of the Israeli occupation, beautifully depicted a region where a roaming valley bathed in sunshine sits equally at home with a devastated block of buildings crushed to rubble. "Ford Transit," made a year later, was a darkly funny and moving docudrama on the exploits of brash taxi driver Rajah and his attempts to bypass the never-ending obstacles of life in the West Bank.

"Paradise Now," however, stands to be the director's highest profile film to date and the one that could finally see him achieve international recognition. Abu-Asad certainly has high hopes for it: "I'm very happy with the film. A lot of the journalists who I've screened it for said they really became involved with the characters."

But making the film came at a high price. One incident saw the crew preparing a house for a scene only for Israeli soldiers to take up a position directly beneath them. The resulting gun battle between the soldiers and Palestinian militants saw the crew caught in the crossfire.

"We were lying on the floor for two hours," Abu-Asad recalls, laughing. "The funny thing was that when it finished we just continued filming."

But for some of the multinational crew (which included Germans, Italians and Dutch) the shooting was too much to bear. Midway through production six German technicians left. "They couldn't take the pressure anymore but I have so much respect for them and the foreign crew that stayed," Abu-Asad commented.

His experiences making the film recall the legendary stories surrounding the filming of the likes of Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam-epic "Apocalypse Now" as well as Werner Herzog's South American jungle-located "Fitzcarraldo." Just as both those films boasted two notoriously driven directors, Abu-Asad admits his own decision to make the film at times bordered on reckless.

"This is an extreme subject and you can't make a film about extreme things without going to extreme measures yourself. To make a film anyway you have to have a kind of arrogance to feel that it is more important than life. That's an extreme idea too," he said, before adding wryly, "Although sometimes I think we went too far and were a little too crazy to make this film."

Besides near misses between gunfights, rocket attacks and detonating bombs, Abu-Asad and his crew also had to contend with a local Palestinian population for whom filmmaking was the last thing on their minds. Faced with endless curfews and the sheer weight of living through three years of violence, at one point things seemed to be getting hairy for the director.

"Some Palestinian collaborators and Israelis spread rumors that the film was negative toward the Palestinians but we also had a lot of help from people who were very supportive."

One incident, in particular, remains vivid in the director's thoughts: "I went one day to buy some shoes. When the lady found out we were making a film she refused to take any money from me. She'd been living for three years in this prison and couldn't believe that we would come voluntarily and live the same life with them."

With hopes of premiering the film at 2005's Cannes Film Festival, Abu-Asad also intends to write a book about the making.

"There were so many stories," he notes. "Through this book we can tell the story of the occupation and make a cultural analysis of the situation. This is important."

Similarly, Abu-Asad is keen to stress the importance of art and culture when dealing with seemingly insoluble situations such as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Though he emphasizes that the film was made with "a personal cinematic vision in mind not sloganizing,' he is nevertheless passionate about the significance of such works.

"The strong always write history. But for the weak, those without the money or power, through their art they can do it too. I don't think it will contribute to the political struggle directly but hopefully our stories and visions can remain as historical documents."

"Paradise Now," directed by Hany Abu-Asad, is not scheduled for release until mid-2005.