Jordan withdraws Oscar semen trafficking film ‘Amira’ after Palestinian criticism

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RAMALLAH, West Bank – Egyptian director Mohamed Diab considers his film “Amira” to be a drama that has drawn crowds at international festivals, but to many Palestinians it is an insult to their prisoners in Israeli jails.

The story of a girl conceived with semen out of prison whose biological father turns out to be an Israeli jailer rather than a Palestinian inmate ultimately won’t go to the Oscars.

After screenings at festivals in Italy, Tunisia and Egypt, Diab, a 43-year-old filmmaker trained in New York with several awards to his credit, had counted on Jordan, where Amira was filmed, to nominate her to represent the kingdom. at the Oscars.

But instead, Jordan pulled the film.

“We believe in the artistic value of the film, and that its message in no way harms the Palestinian cause or that of the prisoners; on the contrary, it highlights their fate, their resilience, ”said its Royal Film Commission.

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However, he withdrew the film “in light of the recent huge controversy the film has sparked and the perception by some that it is detrimental to the Palestinian cause and out of respect for the feelings of the prisoners and their families.” .

His subject is not uncommon: dozens of children are said to be born from vials of sperm smuggled out of Israeli jails by released prisoners who manage to escape the control of army checkpoints.

The method enabled Lydia Rimawi, a Palestinian from the West Bank, to give birth to three children.

But she hates the turn of the story in Diab’s “disgusting” movie.

“It’s not a movie like Amira that is going to make us fold: no one on Earth can make us bow our heads,” she wrote angrily on Facebook.

“Remove Amira”

Under the hashtag #Pull_Out_Amira, social media was inundated with criticism of Diab’s work.

Diab, whose film ends with a warning claiming that more than 100 children have been confirmed as descendants of Palestinian prisoners through trafficking in semen, called for a “spectator committee of prisoners and relatives to watch and discuss” Amira .

Illustration: Palestinian prisoners standing in a cell, awaiting release from Ketziot prison in southern Israel, October 1, 2007. (AP Photo / Ariel Schalit / File)

He insists that the film was not intended to “insult the prisoners or the Palestinian cause in any way.”

But the Palestinian Prisoners Club remains adamant. The organization represents the more than 4,500 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel for crimes, including terrorist attacks that killed civilians.

“We have watched the film from A to Z and, after many sessions to observe the details, we reject it in its entirety,” said its leader, Qaddura Fares.

For Hamas, the terrorist group that controls Gaza and has locked up hundreds of its members, the film is nothing more than “service to the Zionist enemy”.

Amira was funded by Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. The main actors are Jordanians, the other roles being played by Israeli Arabs.

In the face of the outcry, Saudi Arabia withdrew the film from its first Red Sea Film Festival which opened on Monday.

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