Middle East Art Fusion

|* cinema. Moustapha Akkad.

I might be a little bit late on picking up the news, I forgot to post about the significant loss.

There were at least 57 people who died in the bombings in Jordan and probably their names will not tell you anything. But it is enormously sad that a bright Arab American director (originally coming from Syria) Moustapha Akkad was among them. He is the author of such epic films as The Message and Lion of the Desert. (Well, he is more known to the wide public as a producer of the horror series about Halloween and Michael Myers).

However, his much more important contribution is done in the field of potraying Islam in cinema. As Dr. Marcy Newman was writing in her blog "Body on the Line": "These films were a part of his effort to create Hollywood epics that would not demonize Arabs or Muslims. It saddens me that someone like Akkad, whose vision and spirit we need in Hollywood so desperately died. He was a rare one indeed".

Akkad was currently involved in the new project shooting a movie about the legendary Kurdish hero Salahuddin born in Iraq, who would reclaim Jerusalem from the Crusaders in the 12th century. He even got the iconic Sean Connery on board to star in the movie.

Akkad was coming from a small town of Aleppo in Syria and always thought of his homeland as being sacred. He shared fond memories of Syria, its people, the way he was brought up as a Muslim and as an Arab, the parables told to him by his father.

He was very passionate in describing his love for his religion and Arab causes and his disdain for terrorism.

Ironically, it would be terrorism that would end his life.

posted by Aleksandra Birjukova @ 23.11.05