Film Portrays 'human Face' of Suicide Bombers

A film about Palestinian suicide bombers is to have its premiere at the Berlin film festival on Monday.

Hany Abu-Assad, its Palestinian director, hoped there would not be protests. "The film is meant to open discussion, not tell you what you know," he told the Guardian.

"I am giving a human face to the suicide bombers, but I am also critical... I was making an honest film. They are human beings. That is the reality."

In filming last spring in Nablus on the West Bank, the crew often found themselves in crossfire. Six technicians and an actor abandoned the set.

Abu-Assad, 43, said: "It was insane to be there. Every day we had troubles from the occupation. The Israelis and Palestinians were used to news crews of a few people. We were not a small crew that could shoot and run. There were 70 people and 30 trucks."

Filming was completed in in Nazareth, in north Israel, where most people are Palestinian.

Childhood friends Khaled and Said, played by actors from the Palestinian theatre circuit, Kais Nashef and Ali Suleiman, are chosen by their group to be bombers. The film tries to convey their motivations and the tensions involved, with a girlfriend making an argument for peaceful resistance not violence.

The film is co-produced by Bero Beyer, based in Amsterdam, and Amir Harel, an Israeli. Beyer said: "Paradise Now is long overdue. It lights up a part of the world so far absent, but crucial to complete the entire picture.

"We are aware that by humanising these bombers - deflating the myth of martyr is very risky - we will offend certain sectors of society. But if we want to eliminate the horror, we must face the fact it is humans doing it."

Abu-Assad said he wanted his story to be close to reality. "I read the interrogations of bombers who failed, an interview with a lawyer in a jail where they are held, and the report of the Israeli officials. I spoke to people who knew the bombers who died: friends and families and mothers. I learned no story is the same as the others."