Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Was Oscar-Nominated Palestinian Director of ‘5 Broken Cameras’ Detained in L.A.?

Michael Moore, the American film director, sent a message Wednesday on his Twitter social networking account saying that the Palestinian co-director of the film “5 Broken Cameras,” Emad Burnat, had been detained early Wednesday morning by U.S. immigration officials at Los Angeles International Airport after arriving at the airport overnight.

Burnat flew to Los Angeles to attend Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony, at which his film, which he directed alongside Israeli Guy Davidi, is in the running for best documentary. The film documents the friction between Palestinians and Israelis in the West Bank village of Bil’in over the building of Israel’s security fence adjacent to the village.

According to Moore’s Twitter message, after Burnat arrived on a flight to Los Angeles with his wife and 8-year-old son, immigration authorities ushered them into a waiting area and claimed that Burnat lacked the necessary documentation to prove that he was in Los Angeles to attend the Oscar ceremony.

“I called Academy officials who called lawyers. I told Emad to give the officers my phone # and to say my name a couple of times,” Moore tweeted. “After 1.5 hrs, they decided to release him & his family & told him he could stay in LA for the week & go to the Oscars. Welcome to America,” Moore wrote.

For more, go to Haaretz.com

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.