E-Mail This Article to a Friend Palestine now? Hany Abu-Assad on his controversial film BY GERALD PEARY

I wonder how the Nazareth-born Palestinian filmmaker of Paradise Now, Hany Abu-Assad, feels about Warner Independent’s advertising for his movie? "From the most unexpected place comes a bold new call for peace." And, "Sometimes the most courageous act is what you don’t do." Why, I ask, is it "unexpected" that a Palestinian would want peace in the Middle East?

Actually, Paradise Now (at the Kendall Square and the West Newton) refuses to push any overt political line in its scary tale of two Palestinians entering Israel with bombs in their belts. It never asserts that "what you don’t do" (not be a terrorist?) is the most courageous act of an angry young Palestinian. It’s true that there’s an implied pacifism to the movie, but Abu-Assad wants audiences to make up their own minds about how Palestinian rights might be achieved. He’s kept music out of his soundtrack because "music is pushing you to what you think and feel, but the film is about opening up your thinking." He realizes the difficulty as ideology about Islamic terrorists breaks into resolute camps: "Either suicide bombers are evil or suicide bombers are holy, angels."

I talked to this friendly, accessible director after the movie’s Toronto International Film Festival screening in September. "In the beginning," he told me, "I thought I’d shoot in a classic style, yet in a ‘documentary’ place, the West Bank town of Nablus. But we were endangering our lives, under siege. It was very difficult, very physical, no civil rights, so we moved to Nazareth, a safer place."

Did he have trouble casting Palestinian actors? "A few actors refused who weren’t in agreement with the vision of the film." The ones he got are professional actors in the local theater. "Now there are about 100 people who live by producing their own work, tough, professional actors who’ll do anything in order to survive in this field. Every two years, we can produce but one film, so I hope they’ll have work outside the Palestinian territory. For Paradise Now, we could pay. They couldn’t believe I had money for them."

I had special praise for the actors who play the leaders of the terrorist underground. Frightening! "They are so good!" Abu-Assad agreed. "In reality, they are such nice people. They went with me to the world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, and we’ll be at the premiere in Ramallah, on the West Bank."

How did Paradise Now manage to shoot in Israel? "We had an Israeli co-producer, so all scenes in Tel Aviv were shot in the real place. It was logical to be there. We were very quiet and polite and behaved, so we could claim this place as our studio. That’s a real Israeli bus we use, and the driver wanted to know whether our actor really was a suicide bomber."

The Palestinian bombers are promised, of course, a glorious Islamic afterlife. What does Abu-Assad think? "I don’t know what happens. It doesn’t matter. When your life on earth is hell, it’s unacceptable, then you start to believe in heaven and paradise. There’s a need to have this belief when there’s no justice.

"Still, I’m always optimistic, not just because the Israeli settlers are leaving Gaza but because there’s no choice for human beings other than to go forward. You have to come to the point that we accept each other as humans. We are all equal, no matter the color of our skin, or our religion."