FILMS/
FORBIDDEN LIE$
Documentaries
Australia, 2007, 106 minutes
SHOWTIMES
Sun, Apr 27 / 1:30 / PFA / FORB27P
Wed, Apr 30 / 12:45 / Kabuki / FORB30K
Fri, May 2 / 6:30 / Clay / FORB02Y
Sun, May 4 / 8:45 / Kabuki / FORB04K
CREDITS
- dir
-
Anna Broinowski
- prod
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Sally Regan, Antonio Zeccola, Anna Broinowski
- scr
-
Anna Broinowski
- cam
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Kathryn Millis, Toby Oliver
- editor
-
Alison Croft, Vanessa Milton
- source
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Becker Entertainment, Level 1, 11 Waltham Street, 2064 Artarmon, Australia. FAX: 61 2 9439 1827. EMAIL: aliy@beckers.com.au
Norma Khouri’s memoir was an international sensation: the Jordanian virgin fled to the West to escape a fatwa after speaking out against the “honor killing” of her best friend Dalia. Her book, Honor Lost (titled Forbidden Love outside the US), published as “a harrowing true story” in the same year that the United States invaded Iraq, was a marketing triumph for international publishing and media companies eager to promote tales of Arab and Muslim patriarchal barbarism. Her publishers and promoters profited while Khouri worked the talk show and lecture circuit—no matter that the book was riddled with factual errors, including the location of Jordan. Then, in July 2004, the Sydney Morning Herald exposed her story as a hoax. In fact, she was Norma Bagain, a Chicago-raised real-estate agent and married mother of two under investigation for fraud. Khouri denounced her critics as quibblers and vowed to prove that Dalia and her story were real. But when the filmmaker travels to Jordan with Khouri, a bodyguard and a film crew, that proof failed to materialize. On camera, Khouri improvises, evades and spins her account with dizzying speed. The filmmaker plays with our sense of reality in melodramatic reenactments from Khouri’s story and interviews with central characters in starkly stylized settings. One version counters another at a thrilling pace. Is Norma Khouri a selfless writer and activist? Or a charlatan? Forbidden Lie$ lets us be the judge.
—Kathleen Denny
This film is competing for a Golden Gate Award. Presented with support from Advance–Global Austrailians. Global Networks. West Coast Premiere. Sponsored by San Simeon Films and Qantas.
