the 912 story per nyt is
nytimes.com
September 12, 2012
Origins of Provocative Video Are ShroudedBy DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
CAIRO — The amateurish video at the center of the violence in Libya and in Egypt opens with scenes of Egyptian security forces standing idle as Muslims pillage and burn the homes of Egyptian Christians. Then it cuts to cartoonish scenes depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a child of uncertain parentage, a buffoon, a womanizer, a homosexual, a child molester and a greedy, bloodthirsty thug.
The trailer was uploaded to YouTube by an individual whose identity was in question. Some news organizations carried interviews with someone who said he was the filmmaker and identified himself as Sam Bacile, an Israeli-American real estate developer in California, but there was no immediate confirmation in official records of such a person. In one report, he identified himself as 52 and in another, 56.
Yigal Palmor, the spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said in a telephoned statement: “Nobody knows who he is. He is totally unknown in filmmaking circles in Israel. And anything he did — he is not doing it for Israel, or with Israel, or through Israel in any way.” Mr. Palmor also called the filmmaker “a complete loose cannon and an unspeakable idiot.”
It is unclear whether a full movie even exists. Executives at Hollywood agencies, including William Morris Endeavor, Creative Artists Agency and United Talent Agency, said they had never heard of “Innocence of Muslims,” either from a cast, crew or financing standpoint. Hollywood unions said they had no involvement or did not respond to queries. Casting directors did not recognize actors in the 14-minute YouTube video that purports to be a trailer for a longer film.
FilmLA, which coordinates permits for location shoots in Los Angeles County, said it had no records for the movie, as did the Orange County Film Commission and the California Film Commission. They cautioned, however, that they could not say definitively that no related production entity applied for a permit.
Still, a film of this sort — with rudimentary props and costumes, cartoonish visual effects, poor lighting — would be relatively easy for amateurs to make. Digital video cameras can be purchased for $3,000 or less, and relatively sophisticated video editing software is widely available. Casting can be as simple as posting an ad on Craigslist or tacking a flier to a Starbucks bulletin board.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the man who said he was the filmmaker called Islam “a cancer,” and said he had raised $5 million from about 100 Jewish donors and had shot a two-hour movie in California last year. The Associated Press said he said it took three months in 2011 and used 59 actors and 45 crew members.
The A.P. reported reaching a consultant on the film, Steve Klein, who said he had warned the filmmaker “you’re going to be the next Theo van Gogh,” referring to the Dutch filmmaker killed by an Islamic militant in 2004 after making a film about abuses in Islam.
By Internet video standards, few people had watched it until the violent protests. A trailer posted on YouTube had 6,000 views on Tuesday and more than 116,000 on Wednesday. An Arabic translation, which has since been taken down by YouTube after a copyright claim by an entity called K Music Sound Productions, had garnered more than 40,000 views, according to the Hollywood film news Web site TheWrap.com. A copy of the Arabic version uploaded by the Islamic Observatory Centre in Britain registered 90,000 views before it was removed on Wednesday.
The video gained international attention after a version dubbed in Arabic was publicized in the Egyptian media and when a Florida pastor, Terry Jones, began promoting the video along with his own proclamation of Sept. 11 as “International Judge Muhammad Day.”
On Wednesday, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called Mr. Jones and asked him to consider withdrawing his support for the video, a senior administration official told reporters in a conference call. Mr. Jones’s response was “noncommittal,” the administration official said.
The Guardian reported Wednesday that the film clip was also promoted last week by Morris Sadek, an Egyptian-American Copt based in California who has an anti-Islamic blog. One posted photograph features Mr. Sadek and Mr. Jones at a small anti-Islam protest outside the White House in June. Mr. Sadek, reached by Reuters, said he thought the film highlighted discrimination against Egypt’s Christians and said he was sorry that American diplomats had been killed. He said he was interested only in the first part of the film, “about persecution of Copts,” Reuters reported. Mr. Sadek has told The Associated Press that he plans to show the film.
In a statement, Mr. Jones, of Gainesville, Fla., called the film “an American production, not designed to attack Muslims but to show the destructive ideology of Islam” and said it “further reveals in a satirical fashion the life of Muhammad.”
He said the embassy and consulate attacks illustrated that Muslims “have no tolerance for anything outside of Muhammad” and called Islam “a total deception.”
Mr. Jones inspired deadly riots in Afghanistan in 2010 and 2011 by first threatening to burn copies of the Koran and then burning one in his church. He also once reportedly hanged President Obama in effigy.
Reporting was contributed by Brooks Barnes from Los Angeles, Robert Mackey and Jeffrey Marcus from New York, Elisabeth Bumiller from Washington, and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem. |
