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Paradise Now

A winner of 2006 Golden Globe award, the movie has been nominated for an Oscar in the foreign-language film category. Before hitting the trail of the most prestigious and coveted awards, Paradise Now has already won many laurels. The Western Press, in which the Palestinians are often misrepresented, has paid unprecedented tributes to the film in rave reviews.

However, the film has raised a ticklish issue before being nominated to the Oscar. It is, how to credit it —is it from Palestine or the Palestinian Authority? Technically, and officially, Palestine doesn’t have nationhood. It’s only the Palestinian Authority that administers the two pockets of land —Gaza and West Bank —straddling Israel. The film received the Golden Globe as an entry from Palestine and the Oscar Award executives were more than cautious in crediting it to the PA, the reference the US State Department uses in dealing with the Palestinians.

If the film manages to win an Oscar, will its origin be mentioned as Palestine or Palestinian Authority, as the US desires it to be called for political reasons? Though the spokesman of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, John Pavlik says that the ‘Academy is not in the business of defining countries’, Paradise Now director-writer Hany Abu-Assad thinks that the issue has to be resolved at one time or the other. And, a beginning can be made now with Paradise Now.