The 90th Academy Awards, also known as The Oscars, will take place next year on March 4. The ceremony will honor 24 movies that belong to different categories. Among these categories is the “Best Foreign Language Film” category. In fact, “The Insult”
. https://youtu.be/aTEkwQoNpMA “The Insult”, a film by Ziad Doueiri, represents the relationship between a Christian Lebanese and a Palestinian refugee in Lebanon. Tony (Adel Karam) and Yasser (Kamel El Basha) have a verbal and a physical fight, which leads them to a courtroom. The movie got screened at the Venice Film Festival and it was followed by a 5-minute standing ovation. Also, Kamel El Basha won the Best Actor Award at the festival!
Doueiri’s arrest
Yesterday, Doueiri got arrested at Beirut – Rafic Hariri International Airport over his visit to Israel to shoot a movie. In fact, traveling to Israel is illegal for Lebanese nationals. In 2012, the director released an award-winning movie called “The Attack”. The movie got banned in Lebanon and several Arab countries since it was filmed in Israel and it features Israeli actors. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NObn1g6Hzo0 Doueiri was questioned for 90 minutes. Then, his Lebanese and French passports got confiscated. The director appeared before a military court today and he was questioned about the movie. The French-Lebanese director got released without any charges since he does not have any bad intentions against the Palestinian cause. In fact, Doueiri’s lawyer stated that the director asked for permission from the authorities to visit Israel to film the movie, but he never received an answer.