Forbiden Lies

pic Roxie Releasing presents the 2008 US theatrical electrical outlet of veto rest$ A germinate by Anna Broinowski Con or Artist WHO DO YOU BELIEVE? The journalist? The shekels mobster? The murdered coadjutor? The FBI? The violent husband? The extorted granny? The spurned lover? The outraged publisher? The embittered fan? The detective? The Muslim active? The estranged father? The psychiatrist? The media? Yourself? A REAL LIFE THRILLER about NORMA KHOURI, THE PEOPLE SHES CONNED, AND HOW NOONES SAFE IN THE AGE OF SPIN. ? winner better non-fiction Screenplay? Writers Guild of America (East and double-u) 2008 success 20,000 Euro rage Prize ? Rome withdraw Festival 2007 ? WINNER Golden furnish Awards Special Jury Prize ? 2008 San Francisco transnational deal Festival ? WINNER Golden Award long form documental? 2008 Al Jazeera internationalistic infotainment Festival ? WINNER Best necessitate Script? 2008 NSW promethiums Literary Awards ? WINNER 2 Australian fool a way fetch Awards ? Best documental deliver study 2007 Best Editing in a nonsubjective 2007 ? WINNER 2 Film Critics Awards ? Best Feature Documentary Film Ciritcs disperse of Australia Best Feature Documentary Australian Film Critics Association ? vizor Ten Audience Favourite ?Hotdocs, Toronto Adelaide internationalistic Film festival Melbourne global Film Festival ? Official cream ? Sheffield International Documentary Festival Vancouver International Film Festival Rio International Film Festival Rome International Film Festival MOMA docudrama fortnight, New York (USA) 2008 True/False Film Festival (USA) 2008 San Francisco International Film Festival (USA) 2008 Al Jazeera Film Festival (Qatar) 2008 Full Frame Documentary Festival (USA) 2008 Honolulu International subscribe festival (USA) 2008 Silverdocs International Documentary festival (USA) 2008 S H O R T S Y N O P S I dark July 2004, Norma Khouri, popular author of nix Love, was exposed as a fake. Shed won fame a nd fortune as a Jordanian complete(a) on the run from Islamic extremists whod put a Fatwah on her head for her campaign against mention killings. srailway carce she was really Norma Bagain, a dough real-estate instrument and mother of two, on the run from the FBI for one million dollars of fraud. reel murder, politics, greed and literary s piece of taildal into a web that ensnares us all, FORBIDDEN LIE$ is a real-life thriller about a brilliant hear/artist, the wad shes duped, and why, despite everything, we still unavoidableness to be delusionve her. R E V I E W S ((( Wildly entertain and perfectly compelling, Forbidden Lie$ is the documentary version of an airport smart one you cant take your eyes offbewitching Colin Fraser, Filmink _______________________________________________________________ (((( As compelling as every thriller Michael Adams, Empire _______________________________________________________________ (((( This totally gripping documentaryis do with co nsiderable skill its a rally real-life mystery. David Stratton, At the Movies, ABC TV _______________________________________________________________ (((( Margaret Pomeranz, At the Movies, ABC TV ______________________________________________________________ (((( This brilliant documentary is the best Australian film of the year. Adrian Martin, The Australian _______________________________________________________________ (((( This isnt a dry documentary rather its a chase moving-picture show Rodney Chester, Courier Mail _______________________________________________________________ (((( This unconventional documentary impart mess with your brainiac A staggering coup Quite unlike any documentary you have seen Leigh Paatch, say Sun _______________________________________________________________ (((( What a coupFunny, entertaining and apt(p)(p). A marvellously creative documentary, it peels away layers of a fascinating saga one-by-oneWith this de alone feature, (Broino wski) establishes herself as a bold new voice in Australian filmmaking, dependable to take risks and be flamboyant. Sacha Molitorisz, Sydney Morning Herald _______________________________________________________________ (((( layered and visually inventive riveting viewing Rose Capp, Melbourne Times _______________________________________________________________ (((( Fascinating and surprisingly engaging. Tim Hunter, SBS intercommunicate ______________________________________________________________ (((( addictive viewing Andiee Paviou, Who Weekly _______________________________________________________________ (((( engrossingthis is a documentary that will move on you on the edge of your seat. Made with a considerable course of astonishment, unexpected affection and a large dose of humour tom Ryan, Sunday Age _______________________________________________________________ (((( grippingas compelling as any dramatic feature youre likely to see this year secernate Naglazas, The West Australian _______________________________________________________________ 9/10 Youll want it to be long-lifeTry to see it in a cinema as this is a group experience, where everyone gasps at the same moments. Rob Lowing, Sun Herald _______________________________________________________________ (((( utterly fascinatinga very slick presentation, and the tarradiddle it presents has enough twists and turns to keep an earshot enthralled. Tracey Prisk, Sunday Telegraph _______________________________________________________________ ((((( documentary gold a brain-twisting, comical excursion which will leave you wide-eyed with a mix of wonder, surprise and disgust. Like a true-life Catch Me If You Can with chicks. Annika Priest, Melbourne Leader _______________________________________________________________ (((( A fascinating, clever documentary. Sunday Mail (Adelaide) _______________________________________________________________ (((( mesmerizinghooks the viewer in a gripp ing piece of on-the-fly filmmaking Jeff Crawford, Messenger Newspapers (Adelaide) _______________________________________________________________ (((( SBS Movie Show _______________________________________________________________ Fair minded and meticulously researched Vicky Roach, Marie Claire ______________________________________________________________ Forbidden Lie$ is a dazzling performance, both by Khouri and director Anna Broinowski Martyn Pedlar, Three Thousand _______________________________________________________________ Shot and constructed like a homage drama Susan Skelly, The Bulletin _______________________________________________________________ The real coup here is the unlimited entrance to Khouri herself, who jumps at the opportunity to tell her side of the written reportthis absorbing documentary is a thought-provoking conversation starter well worth catching. compressed Riviera ______________________________________________________________ A compelling yar nForbidden Lie$ looks likely to stretch out as its subjects monument. Jake Wilson, The Age Every great evil says something about the times we live in. Warren Beatty, THE HEIST pic S Y N O P S I S How ofttimes do you get inside the mind of a con fair sexhood one of the best ever, according to the dough cop do-or-die(a) to cutting off her down? Norma Khouri is a thief, a saint, a seductress and a sociopath depending on whos talking. Men want to marry her, Islamic extremists want to kill her and the global publishing industry wishes shed exclusively disappear.Those she duped with her best-selling true story about the honour killing of her best mate Dalia in Jordan, Forbidden Love, number 500,000 readers, publishers and journalists in 15 countries. But her victims beginnert end there. When Normas earmark was exposed as a fake by Australian journalist Malcolm Knox in July 2004, the world wise to(p) that Norma was not, as shed claimed on Western chatshows, a Jordanian Cath olic virgin on-the-run from bloodthirsty Muslim patriarchs whod placed a fatwah on her head for her outspoken campaign against honour crimes in the Middle East, but 34 year old Norma Bagain a. . a. Touliopoulos, a married bread real-estate agent and mother of two, under investigation since 1999 by the FBI for one million dollars of fraud. Knoxs scoop rocked the literary world and prompted the FBI to reopen their files on Norma. Norma took a lie detector test in self defence, sued Knox for defamation, dumped her kids with ex-heroin addict and tart-with-a-heart of gold Rachel Richardson in Bribie Island Queensland, and fled to the U. S. A with $350,000 in advances still owing to her outraged Publishers. Shes been in hiding ever since. And now she wants to talk.Weaving between the literary salons of London, the mosque-lined vistas of Jordan, the beachside suburbs of Queensland and the seamy Chicago backstreets of Normas dubious previous(prenominal), FORBIDDEN LIE$ pits Normas tale ag ainst the stories of those she conned. on that points Mary Baravikas, who died in an underfunded Chicago hospital after Norma alledgedly change in her life savings and stole her house. Theres Rachel Richardson, $15,000 poorer give thanks to Norma, who still swears her friend is a sweet person whod bake pies for everyone in the street shes just got dark secrets only she can answer.And theres Normas estranged husband with alledged ties to the Chicago mob, John Toliopoulos, whom Norma claims forced her to commit her crimes at gunpoint. Meanwhile, Forbidden Love has just been released in the Arab world as fiction, Middle Eastern women continue to be murdered by male relatives in crimes of honour with apparent impunity, and humanity Rights Groups have yet to receive a cent of the royalties Norma Khouri promised them.Jordanian honour crimes militant Rana Husseini, furious at the damage that Normas fake book has done to her cause, is demanding to know why the 73 factual errors in For bidden Love slipped past publishing giants Simon & Schuster, Random House and Transworld just ahead the Iraq invasion, when racist potboilers about evil Muslim men with undercoverly veil women on the covers were selling like hotcakes. So who was really cashing in? Who is to satanic?And does it matter that Norma lied? FORBIDDEN LIE$ lets you be the judge. As we take on Norma to Jordan to meet with sight she says will prove that Dalia existed, that she was murdered, and that the media has lied, we also analyze Normas criminal past. Will the FBI arrest her? Is her passion to stop honour crimes good, or just a new con? Who do you believe, as you watch Normas web of stories spin aroundning ever faster, ensnaring everyone, including the filmmaker?Is she a calculating sociopath, a damaged soul craving the limelight, a genuine martyr, or simply a monster of our age, who states that if Bush and Blair can spin the truth about WMDs to justify bombing innocent people so why cant I spin Dalias story to save women from being murdered on a daily hindquarters? In a spin-driven era, as the lines between truth and fiction stand up increasingly blurred, FORBIDDEN LIE$ is a real-life thriller for our time. Weaving murder, deceit, greed, the East/West clash and an international literary scandal into a web that entangles us all, Norma Khouris real-life drama is dismantle stranger than her fiction.We all love notice a self-make con story the more dangerous the better. But this time, its for real. pic Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. accuracy isnt. MARK dyad P R O D U C T I O N N O T E S The marriage between con-artist and filmmaker is a match made in heaven both use a million tiny deceits to manipulate the way we think and feel both are in the business of making illusions real. ANNA BROINOWSKI When director Anna Broinowski read Malcolm Knoxs Sydney Morning Herald article exposing Norma Khouri as a hoax in July 2004, she knew shed be the subject for her next documentary. I wanted to know what kind of woman could be so brilliant that while on the run from the FBI she could create herself as a Jordanian virgin with a Fatwah on her head, pen a best-seller, and convince the best publishing and media minds in the world that she was weighty the truth. Teaming up with producer Sally Regan in early 2005, Anna invited Norma (then lying broken in Chicago) to fly to San Fransisco to attend the premiere of her last documentary, HELENS state of war (about anti-nuclear activist Dr. Helen Caldicott), at the Castro Theatre.Norma liked what she saw, and agreed to tell Anna her side of the story on the condition that Anna make a film putting value Crimes back in the spotlight. Anna, smitten by Norma, agreed on the origin day of the shoot I was telling the crew to hide their acknowledgement cards, that Norma was a notorious con-woman by the third day, Norma had convinced me that her book was not a hoax, that she was utterly genuine, and that everything the media had written about her criminal past in Chicago was a lie. She promised to take us back to Jordan to prove her friend really was murdered how could I not believe her? Annas journey from Norma convert to con-victim is just one of several betrayals captured in the labyrinth of Truth and Spin that is FORBIDDEN LIE$. By the time Anna and DOP Kathryn Milliss got to Jordan with Norma (and her American personify guard, Jeremey Lackowski), it was obvious that Norma was taking them for a ride. Key witnesses disappeared, locations evaporated, and the actual whisker salon, in which Norma had promised to introduce Dalias friends to the camera, fell apart when Normas mysterious cousin failed to arrive with the key. I realized I could no yearner make a film vindicating Norma that this had become a portrait of a con woman whether I liked it or not, says Anna. save through it all, Anna and Norma have remained friends there is a sense with Norma that everything is a grai ny for her, that she relishes the challenge of having to improvise when confronted, of having to convince you to believe her all over again. I cant attend admiring her audacity. The films sprint was designed to directly reflect the mental sleights of hand Norma plays out on her victims. Armed with a 1. million dollar budget, the filmmakers worked hard with visual personal effects company Resin and DOPs Kathryn Milliss and toby jug Oliver to create CGI and in-camera illusions the expense of the round-the-world shoot was counterweight by filming several of the Jordanian scenes in Adelaide with the imaginative help of designer Robert Webb and his team. Above all, the filmmakers were keen to create a real-life thriller rather than a conventional documentary FORBIDDEN LIE$ owes more to the narrative structures of con movies like CATCH ME OF YOU CAN and HOUSE OF GAMES than it does to non-fiction genres. What excites me about FORBIDDEN LIE$ is that people walk out with more questions th an answers. I dont know if we got to the bottom of who Norma is, I dont think even Norma knows who she is, says Sally Regan. There can be no absolute expiration with someone like Norma, agrees Anna. Should we judge Norma, or the spin-driven climate that allowed her to thrive? If the audience walks out less inclined to trust what they are told, by anyone, especially the filmmaker, then thats a good thing With a successful Australian release through Palace in 2007, 2 AFI wins, Top Ten audience votes at Hotdocs, Melbourne and Adelaide Film Festivals, international prizes including the San Francisco Golden door Special jury Prize and the Rome Film Fest Cult Award, and dispersal deals in the US, Japan and the Middle East, FORBIDDEN LIE$ is satisfying peoples desires to be entertainingly deceived. Even Norma, now selling car insurance and studying human rights law at night-school in Chicago, has seen the film and enjoyed it.Of course she had an outrageous new comeback to every allegati on made against her but all of that is revealed in the DVD, released by Madman in April 2008 pic The public will believe anything, so long as it is not found on the truth. Edith Sitwell T E A M ANNA BROINOWSKI ( theater director/Writer/Producer) is a NIDA acting graduate who has been making award winning films for international audiences for the past ten years. Her 2004 film Helens War portrait of a contestant (CBC/ZDF/FFC/SBS) won an Australian Film Institute award for Best Director (Documentary) and Best Documentary at the Sydney Film Festival Dendy Awards.It was nominated for a Canadian Gemini, an Independent Film Award and an Australian Film Critics Circle award. It sell to Sundance Channel, screened theatrically in Australia and the US and toured the UK as part of the 2005 British/Australian Film Festival. Two of Annas other documentaries, Hell Bento (SBS/AFC) and Sexing the say (SBS/FFC), both had theatrical releases, screened at several international film festivals, sold widely overseas, and can still be found in the religious cult section of Australian video stores.Annas other films are Romancing the Chakra (ABC/FFC) and the boxershorts Tsunami (part of the Slamdance DVD 12 angry Women) and Burqa (part of the 2004 Oz feature Time to Go John. ) Annas past awards include Best Australian Documentary (Sydney Film Festival), 1 Bronze and 1 Silver Plaque (Columbus Film Festival), Best Documentary (Film West) and Best Documentary Director (Films des Femmes, France). SALLY REGAN (Producer) was awarded the Kenneth Myer crime syndicate upon graduation from the Australian Film Television and Radio School and has produced film and television in Australia, Europe, Asia and America for the past 15 years.Her documentary, First Look, won the Fuji award, and her short film, Swerve, opened the Berlin Film Festival. In 1997 Sally won the AFC Distinctly Australian Script Editing award. From 1999 to 2003 Sally was Business affairs Manager of Documentary Production a t Film Australia, Australias leaders documentary agency. Since then, she has co-produced the international Russell Crowe-narrated series The Colour of War, and produced National Treasures, Korean Anzac, puppet Berners Loaded Brush and Road to Tokyo.Sally is currently developing a number of projects, including the feature film Axe Fall, a recent participant in the competitive NSWFTO Aurora script workshop (the development stomping body politic of acclaimed Australian dramas SOMERSAULT and LITTLE FISH). We are never deceived we deceive ourselves. GOETHE pic M A I N C A S T The ArtistNorma Khouri The PressMalcolm Knox Rana Husseini Caroline Overington Jon Yates The LawDet. Ed Torian, NYPD Frank Bochte FBI Dawn Lawkowski The FriendsRachel Richardson Kara Elliott Maree Elliott The ClanJohn ToliopoulosMajid Bagain Cousin Faris Asma Bagain The LiteratiPatrick Walsh Larry Finlay David Leser The ActivistsDr. Amal al Sabbagh Nadia Shamroukh The MuscleJeremy Lackowski John Akdikman Anna He rmann The MedicsCharles v. Ford MD Dr. Mumen Hadidi Dr. Hani Jahshan Dr. Nasri Khoury The ActorsDalia Linda Mutawi Mohammed Shahin Azimi Mahmood Fariborz Zareei Michael Farhad Noori Norma Sara Azadegan M A I N C R E W Director/writerAnna Broinowski ProducersSally Regan and Anna Broinowski CinematographersKathryn Milliss and Toby Oliver ACSEditorsAlison Croft and Vanessa Milton Titles/CGIResin 35 mm Blow-up/additional CGITim Trumble Sound design and MixCraig Carter and scratch Smith Drama designerRobert Webb Covers composerMax Sharam Completed July 2007 Format 35 mm Sound6 track Dolby Duration 104 minutes FORBIDDEN LIE$ was produced by the Film finance Corporation Australia, produced and developed in association with the New South Wales Film and Television Office, and produced in association with the South Australian Film Corporation, the Adelaide Film Festival and Palace Films.It was developed and produced with the financial helper ofthe Australian Film Commission and the Australi an Broadcasting Corporation and developed with the financial assistance of the South Australian Film Corporation. Distributed in Australia and NZ by Palace Films. International Sales by Jonathan Page of Becker International. emailprotected com. au US Theatrical release through Roxie Releasing, contact Bill Banning at emailprotected com or grow Norris at emailprotected com and phone (415) 431 3611 pic A half truth is a full-length lie. YIDDISH PROVERB