Author: AFP

Palestinian-American director Cherien Dabis was in the West Bank, days away from shooting her ambitious and deeply personal drama “All That’s Left Of You,” when the events of October 7, 2023 forced a radical rethink.

“We were forced to evacuate… It was really devastating to have to leave our Palestinian crew behind,” recalled Dabis.

“Everyone was so excited to work on this historic Palestinian film that felt like a milestone.”

The film — one of two Palestinian movies premiering at this year’s Sundance festival — follows three generations of a family who were expelled from coastal Jaffa in 1948, and sent to the West Bank.

Costing between $5-8 million, it is a rare example of a major Palestinian-centered feature film getting a high-profile premiere in the West.

“It’s really, really hard to make any film, but it’s particularly hard to make a Palestinian film,” said Dabis.

“It’s hard to raise money for these films… I think people have perhaps been afraid to tell the story.”

Both intimate and epic in scope, the film jumps chronologically, from 1948 through the decades to the near-present day.

Dabis herself stars as a mother forced to confront an impossible decision when her son is wounded in 1988 during the first intifada, or uprising. 

Many of the stories are based on the real experiences of Dabis and her family.

In one harrowing scene, a father is humiliated at gunpoint by Israeli soldiers in front of his young child, creating a father-son rift that will never heal.

“I saw my dad humiliated at borders and checkpoints,” said Dabis, who visited the West Bank frequently as a child.

“He confronted the soldiers, and they started screaming at him, and I was convinced they were going to kill him.”

‘Blowback’

Though the film centers on a single family and is deeply personal in nature, the divisive nature of its subject matter means “All That’s Left Of You” is certain to provoke criticism.

Dabis says that the film does not set out to be political, but accepts that the impression is unavoidable.

“We can’t tell our stories without having to answer to some political questions,” she told AFP.

“We should be able to share our life experiences and tell our personal and family stories and share our points of view without having to contend with blowback.

“So often we do end up fearing it, even before we have told the story.”

That political reality reared again in October 2023, when the Hamas attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 47,306 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.

Dabis and her team fled, and completed the film by using locations in Jordan, Cyprus and Greece standing in for her ancestral homeland.

“I’m actually still shocked that we finished the film,” Dabis told the premiere audience.

It does not yet have a theatrical distributor.

‘Dearth of our stories’

Also premiering at Sundance on Sunday is documentary “Coexistence My Ass!”

It follows Jewish peace activist-turned-comedian Noam Shuster-Eliassi, as she constructs a one-woman show and grapples with the consequences of Israel’s military campaign.

“As an activist, I reached 20 people, and in a viral video mocking dictators, I reached 20 million people,” she told AFP, admitting she is “anxious” about how the film will be received.

Earlier this week, “No Other Land,” a film by a Palestinian-Israeli activist collective about Palestinians displaced by Israeli troops and settlers in the West Bank, earned an Oscar nomination for best documentary feature.

It still does not have a US distributor.

“The industry has to ask itself… there obviously is a need for these films, people want to see these films,” said “Coexistence My Ass!” director Amber Fares.

“I do think that perhaps in the last few years, we have seen a shift,” added Dabis.

“People are understanding that there’s a dearth of our stories.. and that our stories are really missing from the mainstream narrative.”

This year’s Oscar nominations will be unveiled Thursday in an announcement delayed by the devastating Los Angeles wildfires, with transgender cartel musical “Emilia Perez” expected to lead a highly competitive field.

Voting deadlines had to be extended this month, as the US entertainment capital and home city of the Academy Awards was devastated by multiple blazes that have killed more than two dozen people and forced tens of thousands to flee.

Nominees will be unveiled virtually, and in subdued circumstances, as a town that typically fixates on the Oscars race has more pressing matters to handle.

Even so, the glitzy Oscars ceremony itself is still set for March 2, and the stars and studios who have spent months and millions of dollars campaigning will learn if they have made the coveted final shortlists.

“Emilia Perez,” French director Jacques Audiard’s Mexico-set musical, in which a narco boss transitions to life as a woman and turns her back on crime, seems certain to pick up best picture and multiple song, score and sound nods.

“It’s going to rack up a big number,” Pete Hammond, awards columnist for movie trade outlet Deadline, told AFP.

Nominations for its star Karla Sofia Gascon — who would become the first openly trans acting nominee — and Zoe Saldana appear set too.

Their more famous co-star, Selena Gomez, has been criticized for her Spanish-language dialogue and could miss out.

Even so, the Netflix film could become the most nominated non-English-language movie ever — a record held by “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Roma,” each with 10.

“It’s so strong in all of the categories that it could get nominated in,” said Hammond.

Competition atop the nomination list will likely come from Vatican thriller “Conclave,” epic immigrant saga “The Brutalist” and show-stopping musical adaptation “Wicked.”

Sci-fi sequel “Dune: Part Two,” indie darling “Anora” and Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown” are also expected to do well.

– ‘Political statement’ –

Academy Award nominations are fiercely contested by Hollywood’s biggest stars, and this year’s race for best actress appears especially intense.

A-listers like Angelina Jolie and Nicole Kidman went all-out with their performances in “Maria” and “Babygirl,” respectively, but many pundits believe they will miss out.

Comeback queen Demi Moore charmed the industry with her Golden Globes acceptance speech for body horror-satire “The Substance,” and seems a lock for a nomination along with Gascon and “Anora” star Mikey Madison.

“It’s those other two slots that could go any which way,” said Hammond, pointing to Brazil’s Fernanda Torres (“I’m Still Here”) and Britain’s Marianne Jean-Baptiste (“Hard Truths”) as popular alternates.

“Wicked” star Cynthia Erivo is also in the mix.

For best actor, Adrien Brody (“The Brutalist”) is a firm favorite, along with Timothee Chalamet (“A Complete Unknown”) and Ralph Fiennes (“Conclave”).

This year could finally bring first Oscar nods for rom-com veteran Hugh Grant, who is radically different in horror “Heretic,” and former 007 Daniel Craig, for literary adaptation “Queer.”

Or the Academy could ruffle a few feathers in the new White House by selecting Sebastian Stan for his unsettling transformation into a young Donald Trump in “The Apprentice.”

The movie drew threats of lawsuits from Trump’s attorneys, particularly for a scene in which the new US president is shown raping his wife.

“It could be a political statement” to nominate Stan, said Hammond.

– ‘Lost homes’ –

The Los Angeles wildfires have cast a somber shadow on this year’s Oscars, and the chaos and displacement they caused could also directly impact Academy voting patterns, Hammond said.

“We know so many members that have lost homes (in Los Angeles)… some will just not have voted” at all, said Hammond.

He predicted the upheaval at home could increase the influence of the Academy’s many overseas voters, who often opt for more artsy fare from outside of the US-centric Hollywood orbit.

“They’re the furthest away from it, and it will be business as usual for that group,” he said.

“Though I don’t particularly think ‘Emilia Perez’ needs any help,” Hammond added.

The nominations announcement will begin Thursday at 5:30 am (1330 GMT) in Los Angeles.

An Iranian court has sentenced popular singer Amir Hossein Maghsoudloo, known as Tataloo, to death on appeal after he was convicted of blasphemy, local media reported on Sunday.

“The Supreme Court accepted the prosecutor’s objection” to a previous five-year jail term on offences including blasphemy, reformist newspaper Etemad reported online.

The report added that the verdict was not final and can still be appealed. The 37-year-old underground musician had been living in Istanbul since 2018 before Turkish police handed him over to Iran in December 2023. He has been in detention in Iran since then.

Tataloo had also been sentenced to 10 years for promoting “prostitution” and in other cases was charged with disseminating “propaganda” against the Islamic republic and publishing “obscene content”.

The heavily tattooed singer, known for combining rap, pop and R&B, was previously courted by conservative politicians as a way of reaching out to young, liberal-minded Iranians. Tataloo even held an awkward televised meeting in 2017 with ultra-conservative Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, who later died in a helicopter crash.

In 2015, Tataloo published a song in support of Iran’s nuclear programme that later unravelled in 2018 during the first US presidency of Donald Trump.

David Lynch — the singular and surreal director of “Mulholland Drive” and television’s “Twin Peaks,” who depicted the darkness lurking beneath the wholesome surface of American life — has died. He was 78 years old.

An enigmatic artist who turned his hand to arthouse and blockbuster film, television, painting and music, Lynch was considered one of US cinema’s great auteurs.

“It is with deep regret that we, his family, announce the passing of the man and the artist, David Lynch,” read a statement on his official Facebook page.

The cause and location of death were not specified. Lynch, who lived in Los Angeles, had suffered from emphysema after years of heavy smoking.

He emerged on the US indie scene with his creepy 1977 horror “Eraserhead,” and drew both acclaim and a cult following with sadomasochist mystery “Blue Velvet” (1986) and surreal thriller “Mulholland Drive” (2001).

But he may be best remembered for his mesmerizing 1990s series “Twin Peaks,” which paved the way for many a prestige television drama.

With four Oscar nominations, including a trio of best director nods, the filmmaker recognizable by his shock of white hair took home just one honorary statuette, in 2019.

– ‘Fearless’ –

Tributes from across Hollywood swiftly poured in.

Steven Spielberg called Lynch “a singular, visionary dreamer who directed films that felt handmade,” while Francis Ford Coppola said he was “astounded and heartbroken” by the “profound loss of the great David Lynch.”

Fellow director Ron Howard hailed “a gracious man and fearless artist” who “proved that radical experimentation could yield unforgettable cinema.”

Kyle MacLachlan, who starred in “Twin Peaks” and several Lynch films, called Lynch “an enigmatic and intuitive man with a creative ocean bursting forth inside of him.”

“I owe my entire career, and life really, to his vision,” he wrote on Instagram.

Born in small-town Montana in 1946, the son of an agricultural research scientist, Lynch travelled extensively around Middle America as a young man.

He attended fine arts colleges in Boston and Philadelphia before joining the American Film Institute, where he began work on “Eraserhead.”

That was followed by 1980’s “The Elephant Man,” also shot in black-and-white and deeply tragic, but decidedly more mainstream and accessible, earning his first best director Oscar nomination.

Based on the diary of Joseph Merrick, the so-called “Elephant Man” born in the United States in 1862 with a condition that gave him a severely deformed physical appearance, it starred Anthony Hopkins and John Hurt.

An attempt to adapt sci-fi novel “Dune” in 1984 would be one of Lynch’s less well-received efforts, though it still has its admirers.

Lynch pivoted back to his arthouse roots with “Blue Velvet,” about a young man whose discovery of a severed ear leads him to the sinister side of his small town.

It starred Isabella Rossellini — whom Lynch dated for several years — and is often heralded as his greatest work, earning a second Academy Award nomination for directing.

After winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes with “Wild at Heart” in 1990, Lynch turned to television with “Twin Peaks,” which captivated and shocked Americans from its 1990 launch.

The tale of a tight-knit northwestern town reacting to the rape and murder of a popular but troubled high school girl, it was years ahead of its time.

But ratings plummeted as the show’s second season lost direction after the purported meddling of ABC executives, and it was cancelled. An even darker 1992 prequel film was initially panned, but is now considered a classic.

– ‘Big hole’ –

In 2001, Lynch made his second undisputed masterpiece, “Mulholland Drive,” which brought a third best director Oscar nomination.

Naomi Watts plays a naive actress who meets a mysterious brunette suffering amnesia, before everything gets inverted in an astonishing twist that has fans arguing over its meaning to this day.

Film writer David Thomson called it “one of the greatest films ever made about the cultural devastation caused by Hollywood.”

Lynch’s final full-length feature film was 2006’s inscrutable “Inland Empire,” although he returned to the world of “Twin Peaks” with an acclaimed sequel series for cable network Showtime in 2017.

He never retired, continuing to produce short films, music and paintings, and practice his beloved daily transcendental meditation, from his studio and home — appropriately located just outside Hollywood, on Mulholland Drive.

He regularly posted whimsical weather updates to YouTube, underlining the optimistic and playful man behind his often troubling art.

“There’s a big hole in the world now that he’s no longer with us,” said his family’s statement.

“But, as he would say, ‘Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.’”