Keeping up

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Of life and sacrifice

Pardise Now, Palestinian director Hany Abu-Asad's film, shot entirely on location in the West Bank during the current Intifada, will be screened this Saturday (15 October) at the Mill Valley Film Festival in California. Warner Independent Pictures will be distributing the film in the USA and it is scheduled for release in New York City and Los Angeles on 28 October .

The winner of many prizes at the 2005 Berlin Film Festival, and featured at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival, the film was written by Hany Abu-Assad and Bero Beyer; it was funded by a number of European instititions in France, Germany and the Netherlands.

Paradise Now is the story of two young Palestinian men as they embark on what may be the last 48 hours of their lives. On a typical day in the West Bank city of Nablus, where daily life grinds on amidst crushing poverty and the occasional rocket blast, two childhood friends, Said and Khaled, work dead-end menial jobs as auto mechanics. But Said's day takes a turn for the better when a beautiful young woman named Suha brings her car in for repairs. Soon after that he is approached by a point man for an unnamed Palestinian organisation who informs him that he and Khaled have been chosen to carry out a sucide operation in Tel Aviv. The two have been awaiting this moment for most of their lives. They spend a last night at home -- though they must keep their impending mission secret even from their families. During the night Said sneaks off to see Suha one last time. Suha's moderate views, a result of her European education, combines with his pangs of conscience to drive him to conceal the real reason behind him saying good-bye.

The following day, the two friends are lead to a hole in the fence that marks the Israeli border, where they are to meet a driver who will take them to Tel Aviv. But here the plan goes wrong, and Said and Khaled are separated.

The film emphasises the human rather than the political dimension of what drives young people to go on suicide missions. Said gains the audience's sympathy because he is emotionally vulnerable and fed romantic lines by his recruiter, such as "death is better than inferiority," and because he is shown stagnating from lack of opportunities in a besieged Nablus. But the audience also sympathises with his lover Suha, the daughter of an assassinated Palestinian hero, whose perspective is shaped by the fact that she was raised in Europe.

Paradise Now, as Hany Abu-Asad told the American magazine Variety, "was shot in Nablus under the Israeli siege with a crew of 80 people and 35mm cameras. To shoot in such a place under siege was almost impossible," he explained, "but we made it possible because we were all almost ready to sacrifice our own lives to make this film."

Being Omar Sharif

Omar Sharif, the 77 year-old Egyptian film star, made an international name for himself as the handsome young Arabian prince Al-Sherif Ali in David Lean's 1962 Lawrence of Arabia and was a Hollywood fixture for the next 20 years. Last week Sharif signed a contract with the Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU) to participate in a TV serial depicting his life story, with some modification. Instead of a famous actor, the protagonist, played by Sharif, is a world-famous architect living in the US, enjoying fame and fortune but always nostalgic for his early days in Egypt. Sharif has declared that he wants his role in this LE12 million project to be his last. Work on the serial will begin next March, and it should be completed in time for next Ramadan, when it is scheduled to be aired. Sharif has cooperated in writing the script with scriptwriter Inas Bakr, and the ERTU has recruited director Magdi Abu Amira for the task. "Sympathy and Nostalgia" has been the working title.

Success story

It's been 70 years since the first Penguin book was published in London. Penguin's founder, Allen Lane, we are told, had the original idea while waiting for a train. Struck by the lack of affordable books available on the station platform he made it his aim to provide good reading at the best possible price. Two years later Penguin had sold three million books.

To mark the anniversary, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London has a display of some 500 iconic book covers from the Penguin archives. The exhibition, on until 13 November 2005, traces the development and changes in design of the paperbacks since their inception.

"The anniversary gives us the opportunity to look back on the wealth of writing which has been published through the decades," says Helen Fraser, Managing director of Penguin Publishing, "but also showcase new work by today's top writers."