A number of big names are supporting Mohammed Assaf in London, including actor Hugh Grant, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, the Conservative politician, and the musician and producer Brian Eno.
Assaf, who first earned worldwide fame by winning Arab Idol two years ago, is currently in London promoting a new biopic, titled The Idol, about his life.
Filmed in the Gaza Strip, Jenin and other areas of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, in addition to Jordan, The Idol charts Assaf’s life from his boyhood in a refugee camp to triumph in the singing reality show in 2013.
Mr Eno said: ‘I’m very interested in the Palestinian issue and that’s why I got involved in this. I also like Arabic music a lot and I heard about Mohammed winning Arab Idol. He has an incredible voice and a powerful story that made me cry when I watched the film… It’s a good thing that the lights were off… men are not supposed to cry!
‘There wasn’t a single horror scene in the film and yet the director managed to convey the violence and suffering experienced by Palestinians who live under military occupation.
‘The young boy who plays Mohammed is a beautiful child. All the children in the film are. The way Palestinian children are growing up with brutal colonialism as their reference is very brave.’
The Idol is directed by twice Oscar-nominated Hany Abu-Assad, who said at his film’s Premiere: ‘All the actors in the film are from Gaza’.
Abu-Assad explained that ‘because of the travel restrictions imposed by Israel, we could not do the casting there, so we auditioned them via Skype.
‘The Israeli authorities only allowed us two days of filming in Gaza and it took months and months to get permissions to move the cast to and shoot in the West Bank too.
‘I thought that the boy playing Mohammed and the girl acting as his sister were better than professional actors, especially as it’s the first time they’ve played in a film. I hope they will inspire other Palestinian children to take up roles in movies, especially children from Gaza.’
Baroness Warsi, who quit her position in UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s Cabinet last year over its policy on Gaza, praised Assaf at a dinner on Monday night.
She said: ‘We’re here to celebrate Mohammed Assaf’s fight against all odds. Mohammed was not prepared to say no to living his dream and to his desire to give hope to an oppressed people’.
Expressing his own view on The Idol, Hugh Grant said: ‘Yes, I was there at the Premiere and watched the film. I’m a cynical old bastard but I genuinely loved it. It’s one of the best films I’ve seen for years, and I’m not even lying… It was real, touching… all that.
‘It’s a brilliant casting. The young Assaf and his sister in the film are very endearing. It was an excellent introduction for me to Palestinian cinema.’
Elaborating on the power of Abu-Assad’s film, Grant said: ‘I think we’ve become immune to terrible images in the news and sometimes it needs art to really affect people and convey reality better.
‘The film has a very clever light touch politically and it makes the message more effective in putting the Palestinian story on the global agenda.
‘I don’t think art can bring a solution to what seem to be intractable problems, but it opens your eyes and enlightens you.’
Knife and gun attacks are currently breaking out across Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories almost daily, with serious casualties on both sides.
Since the beginning of the month at least 32 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire and nearly 2000 have been wounded in Israeli attacks.
Meanwhile eight Israelis died in assaults, including one in which a victim was run over by a car and then hacked to death by a man using an axe. Numerous others have been injured in stabbing and firearm incidents.
By Nabila Ramdani
The original version of this article was posted on The Middle East Monitor. You can read it by clicking here.
