The Dutch daily NRC-Handelsblad (in Dutch, naturally) reports that a documentary entitled 'Ford Transit' by the Palestinian film maker Hani Abu-Hassan was revealed to have been staged for the camera.
The documentary had been commissioned by the Dutch broadcasting organization VPRO, which is best described as a cross-breed between The Guardian and Howard Stern. (Even more than a decade ago, they had no problem broadcasting extended footage from a "circle jerk" or homosexual group masturbation party, in prime time, uncensored. Even in Holland such things raise an eyebrow or two.)
Anyhow, the documentary in question --- which centers on a Palestinian taxi driver who plies the Jerusalem-Ramallah route --- was supposed to show how deeply the lives of Palestinians are affected by the Israeli occupation. However, after the VPRO discovered that a number of scenes in the movie were staged for the camera (using a few actors and a fairly large number of Palestinian "extras"/"figuranten"), however, the VPRO disowned the documentary, refused to broadcast it, and told foreign broadcasting organizations who wanted to buy it that it was no longer available.
The Palestinian moviemaker doesn't understand what the fuss is all about, saying objective reality is a Zionist-capitalist social construct anyway that it should be clear that some of the scenes are staged, and that he showed only events that actually can happen at road blocks. None other than Nick Frazier, head of the BBC documentary service, disagrees, saying that the staged images look so realistic that the viewer would mistake it for a documentary rather than a "docudrama".
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