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Palestinian Narratives Enter the Mainstream

Palestinian filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad says his Oscar-nominated film, 'Paradise Now,' is an attempt to create peace between the Middle East's many identities.

Hany Abu-Assad's "Paradise Now," which won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film, has been nominated in the same category for an Oscar, marking the first time the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has recognized a film from Palestine about Palestinian culture. (Several Israeli and Jewish groups have petitioned the academy to change the entry from "Palestine" to "Palestinian territories" to no avail as of this writing.)

With the recognition of "Paradise Now," a gripping tale of two young would-be suicide bombers from the impoverished town of Nablus, the entertainment industry has acknowledged that there is not just one narrative; that the Israeli-Jewish story must make room, finally, for Palestinian stories about themselves. And a just-published translation of the novel "Gate of the Sun" (Archipelago Books, 2006), by Elias Khoury, offers another opportunity to learn about how Palestinians see themselves as a people in exile, and how they view what happened to their country in 1948.

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Posted on March 5, 2006 in News Elsewhere by Anayansi