Following Palestinian sources’ criticism of Jordan’s representative for the Oscars, and after the director announced that he would stop screening it, the Royal Commission on Films and Cinema in Jordan announced the cancellation of the nomination of the film “Amira” for the Foreign Academy Award
After the “Israeli semen” outrage : Jordan has canceled the nomination of the film “Amira” for the foreign Oscar. The move came in the wake of criticism from many Palestinian sources, including PA officials, who harshly criticized the plot of the film “Amira,” which they claim disparages security prisoners. The Royal Commission on Film and Cinema announced the cancellation of the film’s nomination for the Oscars. Yesterday, director Muhammad Diab announced that he would stop the film’s current screening round following the reviews.
“We believe in the artistic value of the film, and that its message does not in any way harm the Palestinian struggle or its prisoners; on the contrary, it highlights their plight, their resilience and their willingness to live a decent life despite the occupation,” the Jordanian news agency Petra was told. By the Royal Film Commission that made the decision to withdraw the nomination. “However, in light of the huge controversy the film has recently provoked and the perception that it is detrimental to the Palestinian struggle and out of respect for the feelings of prisoners and their families, the Royal Film Commission has decided that ‘Amira’ will not represent Jordan at the 2022 Oscars.”
The resentment of Palestinian public figures and representatives of security prisoners stems from the film’s background story that relies on an unspoken phenomenon, according to the creators, of the detainees’ smuggling of semen from their detention facilities to their wives in the West Bank. At the center of the film’s plot, which was screened at the Venice Film Festival, is a 17-year-old girl named Amira, who is forced to re-wonder her identity after it turns out that her revered father Nawar (played by actor Ali Suleiman, a Palestinian Israeli), is not her biological father. .
A dose of semen he smuggles out of prison to become a father a second time indicates that he is barren at all. This revelation raises questions about the circumstances of Amira’s birth, and the mystery that threatens the entire family and her mother in particular, is only resolved towards the end. It turns out that the IPS( Israel Prison Service) man, who smuggled Navar’s semen the previous time, replaced the original specimen with one of his own and is in fact Amira’s biological father, making her a scapegoat for her family and friends.
Since the screening of “Amira” at festivals in the Arab world, voices of Palestinian activists have begun to boycott the film under the hashtag #Pull_Out_Amira, and yesterday an official response was received from security prisoners’ organizations stating that the film “serves the occupying forces” .
The protest was joined by members of the lower house of the Palestinian conference who called the film “contempt of Palestinian prisoners.” Committee chairman Muhammad Zahrawi called on Jordanian cinemas to refrain from showing the film, even though he was chosen to represent the kingdom at the Foreign Oscars. Sources in Hamas.