IN CONVERSATION… USA VS AL-ARIAN
Programmer Angie Driscoll interviews filmmaker Line Halvorsen
Link: Click here
A passionate activist and pro-Palestinian, professor Sami Al-Arian
was charged with terrorism and held in prison without trial for two-
and-a-half years. USA VS AL-ARIAN is an intimate family portrait that
documents the strain brought on by Al-Arian’s trial, a battle waged
both in court and in the media. A tight-knit family unravels before
our very eyes as trial preparations, strategy and spin consume their
lives. This is a nightmare come to life, as a man is prosecuted for
his beliefs rather than his actions. Director Line Halvorsen presents
democracy in a new light-in a post-9/11 culture of fear, “security
measures” trump free speech and punishment is meted out in the name
of protection.

Angie Driscoll: Being a Norwegian documentary team, how did you come
across the Florida-based Al-Arian family’s story? Did you feel like
you had a unique perspective as an outsider?

Line Halvorsen: In 2004 I moved to Florida from the Palestinian town
of Bethlehem on the occupied West Bank, where I had worked as a
freelance journalist and filmmaker for two years. One night I was
invited to screen my documentary A Stone’s Throw Away in Tampa – a
film about three Palestinian children growing up under Israeli
occupation. Nahla Al-Arian attended the screening that night and I
was surprised and excited to meet the wife of Sami Al-Arian, the
controversial Palestinian civil rights activist I had read so much
about in the papers. At the time we met, Sami Al-Arian had spent
almost two years in solitary confinement without a trial, and his
case was well known all over the country, particularly in Florida.

We had the opportunity to meet again and Nahla told me about the
impact Sami’s arrest had on their children and also about the
horrible conditions under which Sami was living. I met friends and
former colleagues of Sami’s, who all spoke highly of him and his
work. The contrasting image of him as a well-respected scholar,
defendant of Muslim civil rights and an activist for the Palestinian
cause on one side, and a leader of a terror-cell; on the other
intrigued me.

I think as an outsider I had a different perspective from the outset –
both when it came to the way I perceived the American mass media
coverage and their attitude towards Arabs and Muslims in a post 9/11
climate. I also had extensive knowledge of the situation for
Palestinians living under occupation, and I realized that not only
are Americans, in general, not very informed about the situation, it
is also very hard to talk about it in public.

How did you pitch your documentary to the Al-Arian family in order to
persuade them to agree to participate in this film? Did they have
any concerns, hesitations?

The more I learned about the case, the more interested I became, not
only in Sami but also in the family. I was amazed at how united and
resourceful they were and how hard they worked to aid Sami in his
preparation for the trial. When the trial date finally was set, I
knew I had unique access to a very interesting story, and asked Nahla
if I could follow them through the trying time ahead. Since the
family has had a lot of negative experiences with the media, I
wasn’t surprised to find that the eldest children were quite
skeptical at first. I visited Sami in prison and proposed my idea to
him, too. He said he trusted Nahla’s judgment, and was fine with the
project. Nahla was pretty positive already from the outset. Through
participating she saw an opportunity to share their story with the
world in a way that was impossible to do through brief news reports.

I know that Sami Al-Arian’s treatment and trial infuriated me while
watching the film. What is your view of the expanded powers assigned
to the US government under the Patriot Act? Is this a big issue to
the Norwegian and European community? How so?

I must admit I am very skeptical to the expanded powers assigned to
the US Government in the Patriot Act. As we have already seen, the
law severely threatens civil liberties and opens up a potential for
abuse by the Government. Also in European countries new anti-terror
laws have come into force, like the controversial Terrorism Act 2006
in Great Britain, drafted in the aftermath of the July 7, 2005
bombings in London. Currently this is not a big issue in Norway, but
I find it is important to create awareness and thereby a more
fruitful and sober debate around new laws that are infringing upon
our civil liberties.

This film could easily be a topic film about injustice carried out
against a man in post-9/11 America but you transcend this and instead
focus on the family and how it is affected by false imprisonment
charges. Was it always your intent to follow the family’s struggle
and transformation through the trial or was it something that emerged
over the course of filming and editing?

For me, the family was always the main focus of my interest. I wanted
to look at the human aspect, to go behind the headlines and see what
impact a terror-case; like this had on those affected by it. I also
wanted to find out who Sami Al-Arian really was.

When the trial started, I suspected that the indictment was inflated
but I did not want to take a stand in the case until I had seen the
evidence. As I attended the trial, it became more and more evident to
me that Sami Al-Arian was being prosecuted for his beliefs rather
than his actions. After a while the trial started to feel more like a
Kafkaesque nightmare.

My biggest challenge editing the film was how to combine the
different elements. Whereas the family’s story was my main focus, I
needed to present the case and the injustice done to them, in order
to understand what they are going through. I also wanted to place
Sami’s case into a larger context, to explain a little about the
political situation and the climate of fear in the States right now.
I wanted the viewer to understand that this is only one case – and
that there are thousands of families in similar situations all over
the country.

You capture a palpable intimacy in your film. How were you able to
gain the family’s trust? Did you do anything special in terms of
your approach and/or shooting style that resulted in such closeness?
Did you do anything special in terms of getting to know your subjects
ahead of time or behind-the-scenes?

We were a small team, photographer Tone Andersen and myself, filming
with a small DV-camera (Sony PD 150). We spent hours with the Al-
Arian family in order to gain their trust and confidence and I think
it was essential to the women in the family that we were a female
team. We didn’t arrange any of the scenes, we never instructed the
family to do or say anything, we just stayed at their house and
followed them wherever they went. It took a while for them to feel
comfortable and to let their guard down, but after a while they got
so used to having us around that they almost forgot we were filming.
Working like this is a time-consuming process and not very efficient
in terms of shooting ratio, but I think we got a much more intimate
and real portrait this way.

Personally, I found it quite emotionally straining to make this film.
We witnessed the family go through so much hardship and it seemed to
me that each time they won a battle, the rules of the game changed.
In addition, it was upsetting to see how isolated the family had
become in the Muslim community. People seem to be afraid to get
involved with them, and apart from a small group of committed
Christians, they are fighting a very lonely fight.

There are some revealing scenes that expose the family members over
the course of the film. I’m thinking of Mom popping pills, for
example. Did the family play any part in the editing or ask that any
scenes be removed or altered, for fear that they were revealing too
much about themselves, or revealing too much about the case for fear
of legal recourse?

The agreement with the family was that they would get to see the film
before we screened it publicly. After watching it, the Al-Arians
pointed out a couple of smaller factual errors that we later changed.
None of them ever asked us to edit or change anything for fear of
revealing too much. When Nahla saw the film she said she didn’t even
remember us filming some of the scenes, like the pill popping scene
you mentioned. Nahla was a little hesitant about the phone scenes
where she is talking to Linda Moreno, Sami’s lawyer, because we
filmed it without Linda’s knowledge. During the shooting, Nahla was
sometimes nervous about revealing too much about the case on tape for
fear of legal recourse, but after the trial and the sentencing was
over she did not mind because everything was out in the open anyway.

So the family has seen the film. Can you tell me more about how they
reacted to it? Have they screened it with an audience?

We invited the Al-Arian family to Norway for the cinematic premiere
of the film in February and they received a warm welcome there. I
think at first they were a little afraid of how people would see
them, but after the film won the audience award at Troms
International Film Festival, and the family received several minutes
of standing ovation at the film’s premiere, they realized that the
film portrays them in a sympathetic way.

In Norway they attended a whirlwind of interviews, television
appearances, screenings and debates. Norwegian parliamentarians were
so moved by the film that they arranged a screening at the
Parliament, and Amnesty International arranged a special screening
and hosted the family at the Nobel Peace Center. It gave the family
new hope and encouragement to find that people abroad could actually
understand what they are going through.

Why was it so important for you to tell this story? What about it
particularly moved you?

I have been concerned with human and civil rights for many years. I
also have a special interest in children living in crisis. During my
stay in Bethlehem I developed a close interest in the Middle East and
I experienced the hardship of living in an apartheid-like system
under foreign military occupation. In the case of USA VS AL-ARIAN, it
seemed like all of my fields of interest came together in one
project. I must say I was quite shocked to see to what extent the
government was willing to go to silence dissent, and to see how they
were willing to sacrifice people’s lives and careers to have
something to show for in their so-called “war on terror.”

USA VS AL-ARIAN screens Friday at 9:45 PM and on Tuesday, April 24 at
11:30 AM at the ROM Theatre.