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here everyone i'm jonathan confer with the flick and we finally have another
interview for you and it's a good one this time he's julian schnabel the
oscar-nominated director of films like the diving bell on the butterfly bosque
out and before night falls his latest film is called near all which tells the
story of four palestinian women living in israel over forty years from the
creation of israel in nineteen forty eight to the oslo accords in nineteen
ninety three
the films as the most times the teenager named romero all played by slumdog
millionaires freida pinto as she grows up in the east jerusalem under israeli
occupation during the early nineties the intifada a word which means to stand up
straight has begun emeril must decide between violent resistance against
israel or the peaceful route of education advocated by king hussein
plead bite him a bus the matriarch of founded the safety of an orphanage where
her always raised the screenplay was written by religion brio pissed on her
autobiographical book there was a special screening of her all at the
united nations which naturally stirred some controversy as jewish groups who
have not seen the film like the american jewish comedian the anti-defamation
league cause the screening to be canceled since apparently gerbils life
story isn't pro-israel enough i notice to speak to szabo who himself is jewish
about his thoughts on the israeli-palestinian conflict what it's
like making a film in israel about a palestinian girl in the attack summerall
by jewish groups i think it's a pretty interesting stuff so i hope you enjoy it
so i turned the he said that i need to know that much about the
israeli-palestinian conflict
come before you started making the movie house one hundred or some of the merced
misconceptions that you would have out the conflict that you learned more about
uh... as a result
focusing on those in the name
milindsen
nellore had a feeling that was
how controversial it would be to make a movie about palestinian people
because it seems like you can make a movie about anybody but them
that seemed to be
the reason why i made it
and then obviously
in doing that and spending time
in palestine in israel
you're like a detective
come across things you see the way people feel about what you're doing in
real life how they react
what they resist
uh...
how difficult it is too
surmount certain biases
wearin area where
where there was a location highlight and there was a man who was a lawyer for the
vatican
hello
for the church
jerusalem in
he also represented some
uh... the armenian church and
showed me a couple of locations and i asked for
israeli location manager if you would speak english in this particular
area
alone
he didn't
me was speaking
hebrew with the people from the school where we want to shoot and there was a
man
who is a scary in
priest he was uh... the room advisor to
of the men who
is the
armenian was that head of the armenian sector where this building laws
and when that meant herder
the location manager
and everybody speaking hebrew
we lost a location
so i asked the
crew to speak english
in certain areas not because
i was
i didn't want to speak hebrew i had anything again but i think that we
needed
cooperation from people that were
oh israeli and people that were
palestinians and people that were moslems are people that were christians
and people that work tuition
uh... and
oh
so we lost that location
and there was another location that this again the there either location manager
was unable to get them
andrew luck spoke to
the patriarch of the christian christian patriarch
and he he spoke to these nuns at where this convent
and it was location i was turned down originally in
failing to shoot them
so
there were prejudices
on all sides that we had to
circumvent
and uh...
there was also cooperation in the kind of benevolence that curd
uh... well i mean i was able to shoot in the awesome awesome
the mayor of jerusalem
gave us permission to shoot and and when we close the bob spot which is where the
lion's gate is on the way to the
moslem cemetery
uh... we're able to shoot in the middle of the bureau's relive the
tomorrow sat
scratch crowded there there's a lot of people on the tourists a lot of
all sorts of people greek orthodox
priests in and people from the mosque and
there was all sorts of melons and vendors
yelling patel has a little girls crying so necessary though there are a little
you wonder why am i here
through all of these crazy people screaming at me
but doesn't stop you there mean
there's uh... i think it was a great
opportunity
peacemaking
gesture of open ness to dialogue show the movie at the united nations
at same time you got a group people saying don't show this movie their and
then you have other people saying
uh... or being in support of that and so all of these kinds of
oh
to mason isn't it
it's uh... it's it's amazing what's the problem
so i mean what do you think is the effect on the discussion of the
israeli-palestinian conflict where
anything that you say that seems like it could be
possibly construed as being critical of of actions of the israeli government or
tactics that they use anything like that can be considered anti semitic warren
type israel orenstein scientists whereas anything that attempts to show the
palestinian side or help under people understand what's going on
in palestine
is also considered anti-israel and even anti-semitic what effect do you think
that has in the discussion there's a
there's an article
in the jewish journal by woman invent daniel verena
discredit
still very xd
fantastic
and
she's explaining that
no layered than for me to tell the story is as if i'm bi people could conceive
that has me betraying my tribe
we are making all these movies are the remove is about
vietnam or about
million different prob but i i mean it's amazing how we could kind of examine
ourselves a show that there was some kind of injustice
that occurred
without being seen as anti-american the whole point is that we don't have to
look at this and i think
we need to represent our people here
you need to see the i_m_f_ girl
and it's it's a story about her it's just a story
about this girl and it's amazing that nothing much happens
but
it does say that these people have been born into a situation that they did not
out design
i'm not saying that palestinians haven't been part of the designing of the
situation but this particular girl
is just and these other women are the recipient of decisions that have been
made by man mostly
and
of and they usually the biggest casualties in war
and so
the idea that hindu saini started to school
to protect these kids
why in the world with that the entire israeli
if absurd and so or me telling the story of and animal girl who basically
through love and education besides that she'll write about
what happened
rather than blowing herself up or shooting somebody
seems to be a positive thing rather than
a negative thing it's all it's for the mental health of everybody i mean we
need to be opening to listen to the
we need to listen to the other side like i said orders
node dialogue
what is this discovery
this country that we we're so is supposed to be a democracy
and
and israel's possibly the rock receipt
and it has to be and i think we
need to
the more democratic
we need to listen
two other voices and we also
need to
put some pressure on the israelis too
be more
democratic
and you know what i think that many of many of them armor and when i say that
israelis it's like saying
american so i mean there's just all different kinds of americans i mean and
and and uh... that have many different beliefs and i think that
it's in the state to state
to sd cole palestinians palestinians or israelis israelis are americans
i think that
rojo point of the movie was
about
one person was instead everybody was about one girl about her family
but her experience
powell and
the experience of members of her family and it was hurt like a diary
so when somebody says oh you coulda made it tougher or why don't you show this
other side it's one side
it's her story
it's as simple as that and why in the world
couldn't you tell that story
i don't get it
barrel
understand
the fear and the complaints and all of the not than sanity in the yelling and
and whatever but the idea of making a movie
is to communicate something i think all of my films have been about
people trying to communicate something and having an obstacle
that's stopping them whether it's society whether it's the art world
whether it's the cuban revolution whether it's
prejudice against homosexuality
whether it's somebody that stuck inside their body in the limits of
preconceptions about
sickness and about by that we just usually see people's malady instead of
seeing what's going on beyond that
all revelations in some way to me
oh
and learning
process about when it is to be human being how and
oh
trying in each case
i guess
we use whatever mahaney
perspective is ur my vantage point but
to apply it to different
um... human considerations i mean
if you look at my paintings
they op
many of them have different appearances
the approach is the same
so
is that this may be the same thing in different forms but rather than just
doing something that has the same appearance all the time
it's interesting from new york compelling for me too
uh... try to do some that i haven't done before so i thought it was very
important if
for me
to tell it
a story from the point of view of the sixteen-year-old
palestinian girl
as a
fifty nine year old jewish dot
twenty ten fifty nine if i could set them basically six here's a look