No Room for Palestinian Film at the Oscars

Taiwan was expelled from the United Nations in 1971, when the People's Republic of China was recognized as the island's legitimate authority. Hong Kong was a British territory for 100 years before it returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

A Matter of Identity

But while Taiwan and Hong Kong have an established cinematic tradition, Palestinians in the territories have not managed to develop a robust film industry.

The reasons, according to Hussein Ibish of the Washington-based American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, are not hard to arrive at.

"I think it's very difficult to produce a thriving national film industry under a military occupation where there is no independent state as a reference," he said.

Although a new generation of female Palestinian film-makers have been making their mark — largely because women in the territories find it easier to maneuver restrictions than their male counterparts — Suleiman's success with Divine Intervention is by all accounts a first for the Palestinian community.

Painful Issues

But when it comes to matters of categorization and identity of the filmmaker and his film, there are several complex issues at stake.

Although Suleiman spent his early years in Nazareth, a northern Israeli city with the largest Arab population, he came of age in New York City, where he lived for 12 years before returning to Nazareth to make his first film, Chronicles of a Disappearance.

And though he is a citizen of Israel — a minority called 'Arab-Israeli' by most Israelis — Suleiman considers himself a Palestinian.

But the 42-year-old filmmaker, who is also the lead actor in Divine Intervention, has never lived in the West Bank or Gaza, territories under the official control of the Palestinian Authority.

For Suleiman, the ruckus over his second feature film has been particularly troubling. Reached on his cell phone in Paris, where he is currently promoting the film, the director-star said he preferred not to dwell on the controversy.

"I'm outside the terrain of such a discussion," he said. "I myself have not lived in Palestine, but the title of Israeli doesn't fit me — I have nothing of Israeli culture. And aesthetically and culturally, I keep trying to cleanse myself from this political rhetoric. I really stand outside it. I'm resisting it," he said.

Alarm Bells

Although Suleiman rejects attempts to slot him, the Academy's verbal deterrent to having the film admitted has raised alarm bells that the organization might be operating under double standards in several film and activist circles.

When James Longley, producer-director of the recently released documentary, Gaza Strip, first heard about the fracas through e-mail, he immediately got in touch with the Academy, threatening to return his 1994 Student Academy Award for his earlier documentary Portrait of Boy With Dog unless he was satisfied with the explanation provided by the Academy.