The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has been roundly criticised for refusing a Cannes award-winning movie a chance to compete for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar because it does not recognise Palestine as a nation.
The film, called Divine Intervention, was left off the list of 54 entries for this year's foreign-language Oscar, provoking disappointment among its supporters.
Shown recently at the London Film Festival, Divine Intervention, directed by Elia Suleiman, is a simple and elegiac comedy that tells the story of a love affair between two people on opposite sides of an Israeli military checkpoint.
It was the first Palestinian film to compete at the Cannes Film Festival, where this year it won the international critics' prize.
According to the Los Angeles Times and the Guardian, Academy executive director Bruce Davis reportedly told film producer, Humbert Balsan, it would not accept the nomination, since it does not recognise Palestine as a country.
The Academy says it consults the UN list of member nations when it determines if a film is eligible to represent a country. Occasionally, according to the Guardian, it will consider regions the UN does not consider countries, 'such as Puerto Rico, Taiwan or Hong Kong'.
This view was sharply rejected by critic and producer 'Phil Ed' of the US based foreign film reference website www.au-cinema.com. "Even the Bush administration, although they would prefer that such government doesn't exist, was able to communicate and negotiate with Palestine, thus recognising its existence.
"If Palestine doesn't exist in the movie world, why then was the same Divine Intervention selected as a Palestinian entry at the Cannes Film Festival this year? I'm sure that by now, Palestinian filmmakers - and there are a few, very talented people - wonder what nationality they are. Israeli?"
The Palestinian people "... are now being denied the ability to compete in a competition that judges artistic and cultural expression," Palestinian UN representative Feda Abdelhadi Nasser said in a statement.
Palestinian critic Arjan el-Fassed said the film possesses poignancy and humour which gracefully carries it through. Suleiman, who calls himself 'a chronicle of love and pain', also stars in the film, which is comprised of a series of vignettes with enough comic relief to soften the political message.
In one scene, said el-Fassed, Suleiman sits in his car and inflates a red balloon featuring the face of Yasser Arafat. The red balloon soars over a roadblock headed for Jerusalem. The Israeli soldiers angrily request permission to shoot it down, but they are so distracted, they miss a car full of explosives slipping past them.
"A tremendous crowd pleaser, its irony and self-derision touched both the public and critics, who gave it a long-standing ovation," said el-Fassed, reviewing the performance at July's Melbourne International Film Festival.
Source: http://www.indexonline.org/news/20021216_palestine.shtml
Website for the film: http://www.pyramidefilms.fr/intervention-divine/accueil.html
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