Saturday February 3, 2007

I've Been Thinking:

Sometimes, I think there may be hope.

The occasion of the 25th Teheran International Film Festival, for example, gave me hope.
The Festival organizers invited the Israeli movie "More Than 1000 Words" which is an Israeli-German collaboration about the war in Lebanon to participate.
What a brilliant idea, I thought, how clever.
Let a discussion about art elevate the dialogue between Israel and Iran.

Until Friday.
On Friday, the German distributor of the film received a letter saying that they were no longer invited. Why? Because there were not enough movies in the category dealing with the war in Lebanon.

The Iranian news wire service had even more to say about the cancellation:
"the Zionist film" was uninvited because they did not want the Zionist point of view in "a film dealing with the conflict between the Zionist regime and the Palestinians."

Sometimes, hopes get dashed when reality sets in.