By Paul Tate
AMMAN — Residents of an Amman neighbourhood criticised the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) this week for leaving a trail of debris and broken pavements following the removal of olive trees from the area’s sidewalks last week.
“How can they just come and take away the trees without returning and sorting out the mess,” asked one irate resident in the Gardens District.
“For a week now, our street has been littered with broken paving stones and big holes where the trees once stood… we appreciate the municipality’s efforts to restore the sidewalks but the situation here now is a safety hazard,” said Um Ali.
The mother of three said she now struggles to get her elderly parents in and out of the car due to the debris outside her apartment.
Another resident, who preferred anonymity, said he hoped the municipality would clear up the mess before his parents returned from the Hajj at the end of the month.
“Soon people will be getting ready for Eid and returning from Hajj. How are people supposed to visit us with all this mess?”
The two-year GAM project, which began in early November, aims to uproot an estimated 5,000 olive trees from the capital’s sidewalks in order to facilitate pedestrian access in the city and reduce accidents and allergies.
Responding to the residents’ complaints, the project’s director, Hesham Omari, told The Jordan Times on Tuesday that the municipality is doing everything it can to minimise any inconvenience to citizens and that teams will be dispatched within two days to rectify the situation.
“The workers are instructed to fill the holes with soil once the trees are uprooted and clear up all broken paving stones from the area,” he said, adding that he will investigate the matter.
Omari said all sidewalks affected by the project will be fully repaired.
So far the municipality has uprooted 700 trees out of an estimated 20,000. All olive trees and Washingtonians planted on sidewalks of less then 1.5 metres in width are slated for removal.
The trees are being replanted at a site close to Queen Alia International Airport with a success rate of 80-85 per cent, said Omari.
Studies conducted by the GAM and the Traffic Department indicate that 115 pedestrians were killed and 2,143 injured last year in Amman as a result of having to walk on roads due to sidewalks being blocked by trees.
Ministry of Health studies also indicate that olive trees are a major cause of allergies with approximately 25-30 per cent of the capital’s inhabitants suffering from allergy-related health problems.
Stakeholders in the project also include the Ministry of Health, the Public Safety Department, the Jordan Environment Society and the Jordan Society for Pedestrian Rights.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Shooting begins on 1st Jordanian feature film in 50 years
Movie brings together Hollywood producers with first-time child actors from Jordan’s refugee camps
By Paul Tate
AMMAN — Mention Jordan and filmmaking and most people think of British director David Lean’s epic Lawrence of Arabia shot in the desert of Wadi Rum. But Jordanian director Amin Matalqa is determined to change all that.
The Los Angeles-based filmmaker is currently in town with a 60-strong crew to shoot the first Jordanian-made feature film in 50 years.
Set in Amman, Captain Abu Raed tells the story of an airport janitor who dreams of seeing the world but has to make do with books and brief encounters with passengers.
Back in his poor neighbourhood, however, word has it that he really is a pilot and local children gather to hear magical tales of distant lands, which he willingly relates until one day he discovers that behind the children’s dreams lie stark realities of poverty and destitution.
“I wanted to tell a tale of a man with limited means but big dreams, which he passes on to children who still have the time to turn them into a reality. It is ultimately a universal tale of friendship, hope and overcoming adversity,” said Matalqa.
The 30-year-old director, who himself comes from a family of pilots, told The Jordan Times that the idea was originally conceived back in 2005 with editor Laith Majali at a production studio in Los Angeles.
It was there that the two met producer David Pritchard of The Simpsons and Family Guy fame. Pritchard sent a copy of the script to producer Ken Kokin of the multi-Oscar winning The Usual Suspects, who in turn brought on board cinematographer Reinhart Peschki, renowned for such Hollywood blockbusters as JFK, Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July.
“The whole thing just steamrolled and before we knew it we had an amazing crew of professionals,” said Matalqa, who managed to raise the film’s budget from Jordan’s business community.
The filming of the two-hour movie will begin on Tuesday and over the following four weeks will be shot at the Citadel, downtown Amman, a studio set in Ashrafieh and Queen Alia International Airport.
Matalqa said he spent the whole of last year trying to find the right locations and was taken aback by the sheer quality of the sites.
“It’s hard to believe that Amman has never been filmed before. People usually come to Jordan to shoot in the desert but there are so many other great locations here,” he said.
The film’s cast brings together an uncanny mixture of seasoned actors and complete novices.
Veteran Jordanian/British actor Nadim Sawalha of Syriana fame plays the lead role, with Rana Sultan from Jordan TV cast as a young female captain who befriends Abu Raed.
Sawalha remembers meeting a young Matalqa 15 years earlier on a flight from Los Angeles to Jordan with American director Blake Edwards when the two were shooting Son of the Pink Panther.
“Amin’s father was actually flying the plane and asked me if his son could come and visit the set. Fifteen years later he phones me up out of the blue and tells me he’s making a film and would I like to get on board,” said Sawalha.
“Here I am playing a poor janitor and in a few weeks I’ll be back in London playing millionaire tycoon Mohammad Al Fayed in Diana, A Disaster Waiting to Happen,” said Sawalha, amused at the irony of his situation.
The children of Abu Raed’s neighbourhood were chosen after Matalqa spent last July and August scouting Jordan’s summer camps.
He eventually selected 12 children aged 9-13, all but one from the country’s impoverished refugee camps and with not a jot of acting experience between them.
One of the film’s producers, Nadine Toukan, told The Jordan Times that apart from coming from desperately poor backgrounds, most of these children have only one parent and some don’t even have citizenship as their fathers are Egyptian.
“Coming from this background to star in a feature film has been a truly life changing experience for these kids,” said Toukan.
“Their families were thrilled at the prospect of their children being in a film and have been one hundred per cent supportive. Like any parents, they want the best for their children.”
Matalqa said he intentionally sought out youngsters from deprived backgrounds to prove that social status bears no relationship to talent, and also because it fits with the overall theme of the film about disadvantaged people attempting to realise their dreams.
“We were casting for over a year and some of these kids just stood out immediately,” he said, referring to Hussein Al Sous, who plays the leading child Murad.
Matalqa said he hopes the movie, which will premier in Amman at the end of this year, will motivate more Jordanians to develop an interest in filmmaking.
“It’s scandalous that not a single Jordanian feature film has been made for 50 years. This movie is intended to put the country back on the map while sending a strong message to Hollywood that this is a truly great place to film.”
Saturday, May 19, 2007
By Paul Tate
AMMAN — Mention Jordan and filmmaking and most people think of British director David Lean’s epic Lawrence of Arabia shot in the desert of Wadi Rum. But Jordanian director Amin Matalqa is determined to change all that.
The Los Angeles-based filmmaker is currently in town with a 60-strong crew to shoot the first Jordanian-made feature film in 50 years.
Set in Amman, Captain Abu Raed tells the story of an airport janitor who dreams of seeing the world but has to make do with books and brief encounters with passengers.
Back in his poor neighbourhood, however, word has it that he really is a pilot and local children gather to hear magical tales of distant lands, which he willingly relates until one day he discovers that behind the children’s dreams lie stark realities of poverty and destitution.
“I wanted to tell a tale of a man with limited means but big dreams, which he passes on to children who still have the time to turn them into a reality. It is ultimately a universal tale of friendship, hope and overcoming adversity,” said Matalqa.
The 30-year-old director, who himself comes from a family of pilots, told The Jordan Times that the idea was originally conceived back in 2005 with editor Laith Majali at a production studio in Los Angeles.
It was there that the two met producer David Pritchard of The Simpsons and Family Guy fame. Pritchard sent a copy of the script to producer Ken Kokin of the multi-Oscar winning The Usual Suspects, who in turn brought on board cinematographer Reinhart Peschki, renowned for such Hollywood blockbusters as JFK, Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July.
“The whole thing just steamrolled and before we knew it we had an amazing crew of professionals,” said Matalqa, who managed to raise the film’s budget from Jordan’s business community.
The filming of the two-hour movie will begin on Tuesday and over the following four weeks will be shot at the Citadel, downtown Amman, a studio set in Ashrafieh and Queen Alia International Airport.
Matalqa said he spent the whole of last year trying to find the right locations and was taken aback by the sheer quality of the sites.
“It’s hard to believe that Amman has never been filmed before. People usually come to Jordan to shoot in the desert but there are so many other great locations here,” he said.
The film’s cast brings together an uncanny mixture of seasoned actors and complete novices.
Veteran Jordanian/British actor Nadim Sawalha of Syriana fame plays the lead role, with Rana Sultan from Jordan TV cast as a young female captain who befriends Abu Raed.
Sawalha remembers meeting a young Matalqa 15 years earlier on a flight from Los Angeles to Jordan with American director Blake Edwards when the two were shooting Son of the Pink Panther.
“Amin’s father was actually flying the plane and asked me if his son could come and visit the set. Fifteen years later he phones me up out of the blue and tells me he’s making a film and would I like to get on board,” said Sawalha.
“Here I am playing a poor janitor and in a few weeks I’ll be back in London playing millionaire tycoon Mohammad Al Fayed in Diana, A Disaster Waiting to Happen,” said Sawalha, amused at the irony of his situation.
The children of Abu Raed’s neighbourhood were chosen after Matalqa spent last July and August scouting Jordan’s summer camps.
He eventually selected 12 children aged 9-13, all but one from the country’s impoverished refugee camps and with not a jot of acting experience between them.
One of the film’s producers, Nadine Toukan, told The Jordan Times that apart from coming from desperately poor backgrounds, most of these children have only one parent and some don’t even have citizenship as their fathers are Egyptian.
“Coming from this background to star in a feature film has been a truly life changing experience for these kids,” said Toukan.
“Their families were thrilled at the prospect of their children being in a film and have been one hundred per cent supportive. Like any parents, they want the best for their children.”
Matalqa said he intentionally sought out youngsters from deprived backgrounds to prove that social status bears no relationship to talent, and also because it fits with the overall theme of the film about disadvantaged people attempting to realise their dreams.
“We were casting for over a year and some of these kids just stood out immediately,” he said, referring to Hussein Al Sous, who plays the leading child Murad.
Matalqa said he hopes the movie, which will premier in Amman at the end of this year, will motivate more Jordanians to develop an interest in filmmaking.
“It’s scandalous that not a single Jordanian feature film has been made for 50 years. This movie is intended to put the country back on the map while sending a strong message to Hollywood that this is a truly great place to film.”
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Women scoop BBC NewsMaker awards
AMMAN — Two young women in Jordan have been given the opportunity to broadcast to the BBC’s 42 million English-language listeners after winning the BBC NewsMaker competition for young journalists.
Lina Ejeilat, 24, and Sarah Badry, 21, will make and broadcast their programmes with BBC news journalists next month after their entries were chosen from among hundreds of nonprofessional English-speaking journalists aged 20-30 years old.
The winners were chosen by a panel of three judges, consisting of actress and TV presenter, Rania Kurdi, the BBC’s special correspondent and presenter, Lyse Doucet, and editor of BBC World Service News and Current Affairs, Liliane Landor.
“There was an exciting variety of subjects, and the winners came from a range of backgrounds. The entries showed that many young Jordanians are deeply concerned about issues that affect society as a whole, and are searching to find a unique identity for themselves,” said Kurdi.
Ejeilat’s winning entry explores what she describes as the emergence of a “truly Ammani music” that is distinct from both the strong influence of the West, and Arab musical traditions.
Speaking to The Jordan Times yesterday, the electrical engineering graduate, who is currently working in a telecommunications company, said she got the idea for her story after noticing a distinct change in Amman’s music scene over the past two years.
“I have always kept my eyes open for local artists and have seen more and more Jordanians forming bands and coming up with original material consisting of a fusion of various global styles.”
She believes this emerging musical form is providing Jordanians with a cultural identity of their own, distinct from traditional Arab sounds coming out of Egypt and Lebanon, who have long overshadowed Jordan as the leading musical powerhouses in the region.
“Things are changing here and this has a lot to do with young people now having exposure to the Internet and a wider cultural pool on which to draw,” said Ejeilat.
BBC special correspondent Lyse Doucet told The Jordan Times that Ejeilat’s endeavour to explore cultural changes through music was what gave her the edge over other competitors.
“I like the way Lina is trying to discover an “Ammani” music that can hold its own against all the strong cultural influences from other Arab capitals and the West. It’s also about the democratisation of culture through the Internet, about how young Jordanians can now have the world at their fingertips if they have access to computers,” she said.
For her part, Badry’s winning story revolves around the contemporary issue of Iraqi refugees in Jordan, which total more than 700,000 according to government figures.
The story draws upon her own experiences as a young third-year Iraqi medical student forced to flee her native Baghdad because of the ongoing violence and instability.
“I wanted to highlight the difficulties faced by Iraqi students here,” Badry told The Jordan Times yesterday.
When Badry arrived in Jordan she soon discovered that the universities were full and was forced to resort to e-mailing her friends in Baghdad for lecture notes to complete her studies.
“Many students that came here were unable to gain places. Some of them dropped their studies and took up low-paid jobs whilst others moved to Egypt until the government there stopped issuing visas. Others returned to Baghdad and continue to brave the violence.”
Doucet said Badri’s story provides a window on Iraq’s education system — once one of the finest in the Middle East, but now being torn apart.
“But we also hear how Sarah still hasn’t lost hope in her own country. She finds inventive ways to keep her courses in Baghdad going as she confronts the pressures now building on Jordan’s universities in the midst of this massive influx of Iraqis, “ she said.
Overall, the three judges described the competition as a fascinating insight into the perceptions of Jordanian youth.
“The winners have come up with challenging and exciting stories, and will tell them to our 42 million English-language listeners in their own words, with a fresh and engaging voice,” said Landor.
In addition to broadcasting their stories to a global audience, the two winners each won a laptop computer.
Ejeilat said the competition has given her the incentive to focus more on journalism and may well signal a career change.
“I have always been interested in a career in the media but put it on hold and focused on engineering instead. But the experience of the competition and the fact that my story won has now encouraged me to continue with journalism.”
BBC NewsMaker also awarded MP3 players to five runners-up: Maram Hamam on child labour, Manar Daghlas on Jordanian teenagers preoccupied with celebrity culture, Mohammad Nasser Eddin on the identity crisis of a Palestinian student in no-man’s land, Haitham Jafar on young managers battling with bureaucracy and Lina Samawi uncovering the secrets of the ancient city of Abila.
BBC World Service is an international radio and online broadcaster delivering programmes and services in 33 languages.
Friday-Saturday, April 27-28, 2007
Lina Ejeilat, 24, and Sarah Badry, 21, will make and broadcast their programmes with BBC news journalists next month after their entries were chosen from among hundreds of nonprofessional English-speaking journalists aged 20-30 years old.
The winners were chosen by a panel of three judges, consisting of actress and TV presenter, Rania Kurdi, the BBC’s special correspondent and presenter, Lyse Doucet, and editor of BBC World Service News and Current Affairs, Liliane Landor.
“There was an exciting variety of subjects, and the winners came from a range of backgrounds. The entries showed that many young Jordanians are deeply concerned about issues that affect society as a whole, and are searching to find a unique identity for themselves,” said Kurdi.
Ejeilat’s winning entry explores what she describes as the emergence of a “truly Ammani music” that is distinct from both the strong influence of the West, and Arab musical traditions.
Speaking to The Jordan Times yesterday, the electrical engineering graduate, who is currently working in a telecommunications company, said she got the idea for her story after noticing a distinct change in Amman’s music scene over the past two years.
“I have always kept my eyes open for local artists and have seen more and more Jordanians forming bands and coming up with original material consisting of a fusion of various global styles.”
She believes this emerging musical form is providing Jordanians with a cultural identity of their own, distinct from traditional Arab sounds coming out of Egypt and Lebanon, who have long overshadowed Jordan as the leading musical powerhouses in the region.
“Things are changing here and this has a lot to do with young people now having exposure to the Internet and a wider cultural pool on which to draw,” said Ejeilat.
BBC special correspondent Lyse Doucet told The Jordan Times that Ejeilat’s endeavour to explore cultural changes through music was what gave her the edge over other competitors.
“I like the way Lina is trying to discover an “Ammani” music that can hold its own against all the strong cultural influences from other Arab capitals and the West. It’s also about the democratisation of culture through the Internet, about how young Jordanians can now have the world at their fingertips if they have access to computers,” she said.
For her part, Badry’s winning story revolves around the contemporary issue of Iraqi refugees in Jordan, which total more than 700,000 according to government figures.
The story draws upon her own experiences as a young third-year Iraqi medical student forced to flee her native Baghdad because of the ongoing violence and instability.
“I wanted to highlight the difficulties faced by Iraqi students here,” Badry told The Jordan Times yesterday.
When Badry arrived in Jordan she soon discovered that the universities were full and was forced to resort to e-mailing her friends in Baghdad for lecture notes to complete her studies.
“Many students that came here were unable to gain places. Some of them dropped their studies and took up low-paid jobs whilst others moved to Egypt until the government there stopped issuing visas. Others returned to Baghdad and continue to brave the violence.”
Doucet said Badri’s story provides a window on Iraq’s education system — once one of the finest in the Middle East, but now being torn apart.
“But we also hear how Sarah still hasn’t lost hope in her own country. She finds inventive ways to keep her courses in Baghdad going as she confronts the pressures now building on Jordan’s universities in the midst of this massive influx of Iraqis, “ she said.
Overall, the three judges described the competition as a fascinating insight into the perceptions of Jordanian youth.
“The winners have come up with challenging and exciting stories, and will tell them to our 42 million English-language listeners in their own words, with a fresh and engaging voice,” said Landor.
In addition to broadcasting their stories to a global audience, the two winners each won a laptop computer.
Ejeilat said the competition has given her the incentive to focus more on journalism and may well signal a career change.
“I have always been interested in a career in the media but put it on hold and focused on engineering instead. But the experience of the competition and the fact that my story won has now encouraged me to continue with journalism.”
BBC NewsMaker also awarded MP3 players to five runners-up: Maram Hamam on child labour, Manar Daghlas on Jordanian teenagers preoccupied with celebrity culture, Mohammad Nasser Eddin on the identity crisis of a Palestinian student in no-man’s land, Haitham Jafar on young managers battling with bureaucracy and Lina Samawi uncovering the secrets of the ancient city of Abila.
BBC World Service is an international radio and online broadcaster delivering programmes and services in 33 languages.
Friday-Saturday, April 27-28, 2007
Author of fake honour killing book exposed in new film
By Paul Tate
AMMAN — Three years after Norma Khouri’s bestselling book on her friend’s honour killing was exposed as a fake, the Jordanian-born writer has taken to the silver screen to clear her name, but her efforts to salvage her reputation spectacularly backfired.
Khouri’s book, Forbidden Love, told the story of her childhood friend Dalia, a Muslim from a conservative family who was murdered by her father after he discovered she was engaged in a secret love affair with a Christian army officer.
The book, published in 2003, proved a big hit, selling half a million copies in 15 countries and turning Khouri into a self-styled champion of women’s rights.
But Khouri’s new found status was short-lived when it transpired that her story was fabricated.
Far from a growing up in the male-dominated society she described, Khouri had lived in Chicago since the age of three, held an American passport and was married with two children, a difficult feat for someone who claimed to be a virgin. What’s more, she never had a childhood friend called Dalia who was murdered in an honour killing.
The deception may well have gone unnoticed if it were not for the determination of a small band of women’s rights activists in Jordan who expressed doubts over the book’s authenticity.
“From the first few pages it was obvious that this woman did not know anything about Jordan, says activist and Joradan Times Reporter Rana Husseini, the driving force behind exposing Khouri.
Husseini, who is featured in the film, at first became suspicious on reading that the story was based around a unisex hair saloon set up by Khouri and Dalia.
“Everyone here knows that such places do not exist and are against Jordanian law. I then discovered that the book was full of factual errors such as the River Jordan runs through Amman and that the country shares borders with Egypt, Kuwait and Lebanon.”
Picking up the cause, the Jordanian National Commission for Women contacted the book’s publishers, Random House, to express their concerns. But despite repeated letters the publishers stood by Khouri, even refusing to reclassify the book as fiction.
Finally, in 2004, journalist Malcolm Knox ran a front page splash in the Sydney Morning herald exposing the full extent of the hoax. Random House immediately ordered the book to be withdrawn and Khouri went into hiding, or so everyone thought.
For the past two years Khouri has been making the aptly titled film “Forbidden Lies” with Australian director Anna Broinowski. The film premiered on February 25 at the Adelaide Film Festival and was Khouri’s attempt to clear her name.
Broinowski says she first met Khouri in San Francisco in 2005 and was taken in by her story that she had been the victim of a vicious smear campaign in the media.
“She utterly convinced me that she’d been maligned by the press, that her book was a true story and that she was not the con artist she’d been made out to be,” Broinowski told The Jordan Times.
But when Khouri invited Broinowski and producer Sally Regan to travel to Jordan to verify her story they soon realised all was not well.
“What happened in Jordan was astounding, says Broinowski. “Norma led us on a wild goose chase, changing the goals posts at every turn, failing to produce witnesses and relatives, taking us to dubious locations and refusing to show us the real unisex saloon where the core of the drama Forbidden Love takes place.”
During their stay, Broinowski says Khouri became increasingly paranoid, insisting her life was in danger and refusing to go anywhere without her bodyguard. She also refused point blank to debate with any of the activists who had accused her of being a fraud.
“We spent most of our time in a van with tinted windows or in hotel rooms away from extremists supposedly lurking behind every plant pot,” says Broinowski.
It was only when Khouri took the name of the real Dalia to be checked at the Forensics Institute in Amman that the film-makers knew for certain they had been duped.
“When I got back from Jordan I realised the film was now the portrait of a con woman whether I like it or not. I was disappointed Norma hadn’t proven her story but also fascinated by the woman I was getting to know,” says Broinowski.
Not one to give up easily, Khouri remains unfazed by the whole episode, revealing that she’d deliberately withheld Dalia’s real identity because she never trusted the film-makers in the first place.
As for Broinowski, despite being led on a wild goosed chase in search of a fictional Dalia, she appears to hold no grudges, recalling her time with Khouri with a certain fondness.
“I feel that she is genuinely committed to stopping honour crimes… she is brilliant, articulate, a born improviser and a naturally gifted actress… I wish she’d become a philosopher or fiction writer rather than getting embroiled in lies.”
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
AMMAN — Three years after Norma Khouri’s bestselling book on her friend’s honour killing was exposed as a fake, the Jordanian-born writer has taken to the silver screen to clear her name, but her efforts to salvage her reputation spectacularly backfired.
Khouri’s book, Forbidden Love, told the story of her childhood friend Dalia, a Muslim from a conservative family who was murdered by her father after he discovered she was engaged in a secret love affair with a Christian army officer.
The book, published in 2003, proved a big hit, selling half a million copies in 15 countries and turning Khouri into a self-styled champion of women’s rights.
But Khouri’s new found status was short-lived when it transpired that her story was fabricated.
Far from a growing up in the male-dominated society she described, Khouri had lived in Chicago since the age of three, held an American passport and was married with two children, a difficult feat for someone who claimed to be a virgin. What’s more, she never had a childhood friend called Dalia who was murdered in an honour killing.
The deception may well have gone unnoticed if it were not for the determination of a small band of women’s rights activists in Jordan who expressed doubts over the book’s authenticity.
“From the first few pages it was obvious that this woman did not know anything about Jordan, says activist and Joradan Times Reporter Rana Husseini, the driving force behind exposing Khouri.
Husseini, who is featured in the film, at first became suspicious on reading that the story was based around a unisex hair saloon set up by Khouri and Dalia.
“Everyone here knows that such places do not exist and are against Jordanian law. I then discovered that the book was full of factual errors such as the River Jordan runs through Amman and that the country shares borders with Egypt, Kuwait and Lebanon.”
Picking up the cause, the Jordanian National Commission for Women contacted the book’s publishers, Random House, to express their concerns. But despite repeated letters the publishers stood by Khouri, even refusing to reclassify the book as fiction.
Finally, in 2004, journalist Malcolm Knox ran a front page splash in the Sydney Morning herald exposing the full extent of the hoax. Random House immediately ordered the book to be withdrawn and Khouri went into hiding, or so everyone thought.
For the past two years Khouri has been making the aptly titled film “Forbidden Lies” with Australian director Anna Broinowski. The film premiered on February 25 at the Adelaide Film Festival and was Khouri’s attempt to clear her name.
Broinowski says she first met Khouri in San Francisco in 2005 and was taken in by her story that she had been the victim of a vicious smear campaign in the media.
“She utterly convinced me that she’d been maligned by the press, that her book was a true story and that she was not the con artist she’d been made out to be,” Broinowski told The Jordan Times.
But when Khouri invited Broinowski and producer Sally Regan to travel to Jordan to verify her story they soon realised all was not well.
“What happened in Jordan was astounding, says Broinowski. “Norma led us on a wild goose chase, changing the goals posts at every turn, failing to produce witnesses and relatives, taking us to dubious locations and refusing to show us the real unisex saloon where the core of the drama Forbidden Love takes place.”
During their stay, Broinowski says Khouri became increasingly paranoid, insisting her life was in danger and refusing to go anywhere without her bodyguard. She also refused point blank to debate with any of the activists who had accused her of being a fraud.
“We spent most of our time in a van with tinted windows or in hotel rooms away from extremists supposedly lurking behind every plant pot,” says Broinowski.
It was only when Khouri took the name of the real Dalia to be checked at the Forensics Institute in Amman that the film-makers knew for certain they had been duped.
“When I got back from Jordan I realised the film was now the portrait of a con woman whether I like it or not. I was disappointed Norma hadn’t proven her story but also fascinated by the woman I was getting to know,” says Broinowski.
Not one to give up easily, Khouri remains unfazed by the whole episode, revealing that she’d deliberately withheld Dalia’s real identity because she never trusted the film-makers in the first place.
As for Broinowski, despite being led on a wild goosed chase in search of a fictional Dalia, she appears to hold no grudges, recalling her time with Khouri with a certain fondness.
“I feel that she is genuinely committed to stopping honour crimes… she is brilliant, articulate, a born improviser and a naturally gifted actress… I wish she’d become a philosopher or fiction writer rather than getting embroiled in lies.”
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
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