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'Torn Apart' Is A Tearful
Arab-Jewish Love Story
RICHARD RUBIN
Special to The Jewish News
A
film about the love
between an Israeli
and an Arab is leav-
ing audiences in New York
teary-eyed and those in-
volved in its production
hopeful that love can con-
quer fear and distrust.
Based on the novel A For-
bidden Love by the Israeli
writer Chayym Zeldis, Torn
Apart tells the story about a
love affair between Ben, an
Israeli soldier, played by
Adrian Pasdar, and Laila,
an Arab woman, played by
Celia Peck.
"The message of the film is
that there is a need for peace
there," Peck said. "And that
love can triumph over bit-
terness and prejudice."
Brothers Danny and Jack
Fisher, the producer and di-
rector of Torn Apart,
originally thought of mak-
ing the film after they were
contacted by Zeldis. He had
heard about their earlier
documentary film, A Ge-
neration Apart about Holo-
caust survivors and their
families.
"I was interested in doing
a Jewish film," said Danny
Fisher, during a break from
handing out fliers promoting
Torn Apart outside the mid-
town Manhattan theater
where it was playing. Torn
Apart opened to mixed re-
views in New York in April.
The film is the first feature
by the Fishers, who were
born in Haifa to
Czechoslovak Holocaust
survivors. The brothers
usually make television
commercials.
"What attracted me to the
book is that I saw the love
story as a vision of the in-
evitability of peace between
Arabs and Jews," Fisher
said.
Israeli Arab actor Makram.
Khoury plays Mahmoud,
Laila's father, a man torn
between his visions of peace
and concerns for his
daughter.
Describing himself as "a
Palestinian, an Arab and an
Israeli," Khoury, who was
born in Jerusalem and lives
in Acre, said he "believed in
the script from the beginn-
ing."
There are many people in
Israel, both Jews and Arabs,
who, like Mahmoud, believe
in peace, Khoury said.
"Unfortunately, there are
extremists from both sides
who are making our lives
very hard and sometimes
destructive," he said.
A veteran of five Israeli,
two Palestinian and now an
American film, Khoury is
popular with both Israelis
and Palestinians. He at-
tributes this to his
"understanding of the Jew-
ish tragedy and, being a Pa-
lestinian, understanding our
tragedy.
"We are victims of cir-
cumstance," Khoury said.
"We have to keep up the
continuous hope of co-
existence." Peck prepared
for her role as Laila, her first
"I discovered the
Israeli Arab people
were very gracious,
gentle people,
hopeful for peace,
hopeful for their
living side-by-side
with their Jewish
neighbors,"
Celia Peck
lead in a feature film, by
spending three weeks prior
to the film's shooting in
Arab villages in northern
Israel.
"I discovered the Israeli
Arab people were very
gracious, gentle people,
hopeful for peace, hopeful for
their living side- by-side
with their Jewish
neighbors," said Peck, who
had been to Israel previously
with her parents, actor
Gregory and Veronique
Peck.
The actress said she asked
Arab parents how they
would react if their daughter
married an Israeli soldier.
"They would say it could not
happen," she said.
While he had been nervous
about filming in Israel, espe-
cially while the intifada was
raging in the summer of
1988, Fisher said the reality
was a "beautiful experi-
ence" with no hostility from
either side in the conflict,
Fisher said.
"As far as anybody was
concerned, Jew or Arab, this
was Hollywood," he said.
But from the time of the
birth of Torn Apart,
Hollywood has not been re-
ceptive to the film.
"We tried the studios, the
distributors, nobody was in-
terested in a first-time
feature," Fisher said.
After three years, the pro-
ducers had raised enough
funds from sources who had
never before invested in a
movie to begin filming in
Israel, although they had to
return after three weeks,
armed with a one-minute
demo tape, to seek funds for
the final four weeks of
shooting.
While Fisher won't say
how much the film cost, he
said "it was made for an
astonishingly low budget."
With Torn Apart's comple-
tion in May 1989, the
Fishers began to seek out a
distributor, eventually
meeting with 120 people,
some who saw the film
several times. But there
were no takers until several
weeks ago, when Castle Hill,
a New York- based
distributor picked up the
film.
"Their main beef," Fisher
said of the other
distributors, "was that there
were no stars. If it didn't
have Tom Cruise in it, forget
about it."
Since Torn Apart's open-
ing, the film is next schedul-
ed for distribution in
California and Florida, with
eventual play in Israel and
Europe. Both Jews and
Arabs have responded
positively to it, Fisher and
Peck said.
"A woman came over to us
and was sobbing for 15
minutes, thanking us for
making it," Peck said. ❑
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Civic Center
Plans Exhibit
The City of Southfield,
cultural arts division of parks
and recreation, will host an
exhibit by Art Block Inc., at
the Southfield Civic Center
Gallery.
Participating artists in-
clude: Mary Hammond, P.A.
Hicks, Carlene Lagrou, Vic-
tor Lay, Marcia Lovell, John
MacDermaid, Donald R.
"Pete" Malone, Linda Reber,
Barbara Gasparski and Wan-
da Pink.
Lemberg Gallery
Watercolors
On June 16, Lemberg
Gallery will open an exhibit
of new watercolors by Electra
Stamelos, with a reception for
the artist from 3-5 p.m. The
show runs through July 14.
Stamelos teaches at the
University of Michigan and
the Birmingham-Bloomfield
Art Association.
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